Back to Our Reality
by HeKillsWithHisSmile
Summary: What would happen if the Doctor, in the spur of the moment, decided to pull out the dimension jump disc from his pocket and press the button after Pete comes back to save Rose before the Void closed? How would he cope living in a parallel universe, without his TARDIS, bound to the slow path for the foreseeable future? (TenxRose)
1. ONE

**_Hi all, so I'm back with another new story. The plot bunnies decided to come to me right at the end of my exam period, but I held them off like the good student I am (ha, I'm terrible at revising anyway) and waited until they were over before I wrote this. So here it is. I hope it's alright, still getting used to Doctor Who fanfic writing again, but I think I'm slowly getting there (I've now finished rewatching series 1-9 and have started back at 1 again, and it feels like I never went away). Let me know what you think, I really appreciate it. Constructive criticism is welcome, as always._**

 ** _Enjoy and see you soon (hopefully)_**

 ** _Emma :)_**

* * *

" _ROSE, HOLD ON!"_

The Doctor watched as Rose began to pull away from the mangaclamp, reaching out for her lever which was quickly falling back to the 'offline' position. Daleks and Cybermen, once hurtling into the Void in a blur, were now slowing down. There was no telling what would happen if their plan failed and one of either species was able to escape.

" _I'VE GOTTA GET IT UP RIGHT!"_

He knew she was right, but he didn't like what he was seeing. His hearts were beating faster than he could ever remember. If she slipped then she would follow the Daleks and the Cybermen into the Void: into hell.

The Doctor watched, unable to do anything without slipping himself, as Rose pushed as hard as she could against the pull of the Void, eventually managing to get the lever into its rightful position. The strength of the pull began to increase again and the Doctor could do nothing but scream at Rose to hold on as she started to be pulled towards the opening.

In a heartbeat, she was horizontal, holding on to the lever with everything she had. But it wasn't enough; she was being pulled towards the opening, her fingers slipping until she was holding on by just the tips of her fingers.

It was only a matter of time until she couldn't hold on any longer and with one last look across at the Doctor, looking at her with panic in his eyes, her fingers slipped and she found herself hurtling towards the Void, the Daleks and Cybermen now long gone.

The Doctor screamed her name. There was nothing he could do. Rose; _his Rose,_ was falling into the Void; towards her death and there wasn't a thing in the universe he could do to save her.

The Doctor wasn't one for believing in miracles, but just this once, he let himself believe he had been witness to one. Out of nowhere, Pete Tyler arrived, grabbing Rose before she fell.

She turned around one last time and the Doctor could do nothing other than look back at her before Pete disappeared as quickly as he had arrived, only this time, taking Rose with him.

She was gone and the Doctor knew that he only had seconds before the Void closed forever; seconds before he knew he could never see her again.

His hand had already made it to the pocket of his suit jacket, it had moved there just before Pete had taken Rose back with him; his reflexes being slightly ahead of his brain.

With only seconds before the Void would be closing, the Doctor's fingers touched the round disc of the dimension jump. After Rose had taken it off when she returned from safety, the Doctor had picked it up again, thinking he might need it had the opportunity to save Rose had come round again.

Everything from then on seemed to be automatic. The Doctor's fingers suddenly applied presser to the yellow button in the middle of the disc and, before his brain could even register what had happened, the Doctor found himself falling to the ground in a heap on the floor.

"Doctor?"

Pulling himself up with a groan, the Doctor looked up to find Rose kneeling in front of him. He could see the remnants of tears left behind in her red and puffy eyes.

"Rose," was all the Doctor could say, his voice no more than a whisper, before he was pulled into a bone crushing hug.

Hugging her back just as tightly, the Doctor could feel Rose's tears soak through the jacket of his suit. It was then that the weight of realisation dawned on him and he realised what he had done.

"Why did come here?" Rose asked quietly, her voice cracking.

The Doctor didn't say a word and just continued to hold her. What had he done? He was trapped here, the walls now closed. The TARDIS still sat on the other side of the Void, abandoned. He had nothing left. Nothing but what was in front of him but how long would that last?

…

The Doctor didn't say a word on the way back to the Tyler Mansion. He sat at the back of one of the cars Pete had called for, Rose next to him, staring out of the window. Every now and then, from the reflection in the glass, he would see Rose look up at him in concern. She hadn't asked him outright what it was he was upset about and he assumed that was because she knew. She always knew. How could she not? He knew she was feeling it too; the loss of their previously life. Only she didn't feel it as much as he did.

It wasn't too long before they arrived at the mansion. Pete, Jackie and Mickey were already climbing out of their car by the time the Doctor and Rose arrived in theirs. Jake had already gone home, leaving the five of them with each other: a family of two universes.

The Doctor, Rose and Mickey were each shown to a room once they entered the house and told that dinner would be a seven. Having left the three of them to get themselves settled, Pete led Jackie away to talk to her. As he did, Rose couldn't help but smile a little despite herself. Her mum seemed to be finally happy. She finally had the man she had lost twenty-years previously back in her life and, despite him being a parallel version of the dad she had barely gotten to know, he was definitely the same man. It made her happy that something good had come from the events of the terrible day they had had.

Thinking of the day's events, Rose felt a pang of sorrow when she remember what the Doctor had lost. Why had he done it? Why had he chosen to press that button? He must have known he would be trapped here; must have known what he was giving up. Her thoughts turned to the TARDIS, still at their version of Torchwood. What would happen to it now? She just hoped that, whoever found it, treated it with respect. There were many memories held within that impossible wooden box and Rose herself only formed a tiny amount of them. Maybe they would eventually find a way back. The Doctor had said that travel between parallel worlds was impossible but, if there was one thing Rose knew the Doctor was good at, it was defying the impossible. She just hoped that a miracle happened sooner rather than later.

Deciding that she should go and if the Doctor was in anyway alright, she left her room and went to the room across the hall. She knocked twice but received no answer. She knew he was in here and she knew that the likelihood of him being asleep was very slim indeed. Rose gathered that the Doctor probably wanted to be alone right now, but she knew he needed someone and she was the only one here who had even the slightest understanding of how he was feeling right now. Therefore, she didn't both to knock again and twisted the doorknob, slowly pushing the door open into the room.

Slowly taking a couple of steps in, Rose looked around the room. It was similar to hers; a simple plain wallpaper and carpet with a four-poster bed leaning against the wall adjacent to her.

On the bed lay the figure of the Doctor. He either hadn't noticed her come in or he was choosing to ignore her as he continued to stare up at the blank, white ceiling above him, his hands clasped together on his stomach.

"This ceiling's too blank," the Doctor suddenly said, still not turning to look at Rose. "I like the ones with the little patterns it in."

"Doctor?" Rose asked, but he ignored her and continued to talk about the ceiling.

"The pattern ones are the best, you're always finding something in them that you didn't see before. Little images that your mind comes up with when your least expecting it. Hours of entertainment, if you ask me." He continued, still never once acknowledging Rose's presence.

Closing the door, Rose tried again.

"Doctor, are you alright?" She asked gently, knowing that it was probably the worst question to ask him right now. Of course he wasn't alright, but if there was even the slightest chance that she could help him in anyway then, well, she wasn't going to sit back and not take it.

Expecting him to start another ramble about some other part of the bedroom's décor, Rose was surprised when the Doctor didn't say anything at all. He just lay there, like he had been doing, staring up at the blankness.

"I thought I was going to lose you." The Doctor eventually said after what seemed like an eternity.

"What?" Rose asked, startled by the Doctor's sudden confession. If she was honest with herself she didn't expect him to willingly say anything about what had happened today.

"I thought you were gone forever and that I would never see you again." The Doctor stated.

Rose went and sat down next to the Doctor on the bed, her back resting straight against the headboard with her knees to chest. "Doctor," she said, trying to get her friend to look at her. He didn't. "Doctor, look at me."

Eventually, the Doctor turned his head slightly, looking up at her. However, his eyes never quite met hers. He couldn't bring himself to do that. Not yet anyway.

"I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere." Rose told him with a small smile. The Doctor, however, just looked back up at the ceiling.

Rose sighed and a pang of guilt shot through her. "Is that why you did it?" She asked, but she received no answer. She had figured this was how any conversation she was going to have with the Doctor today was going to work along this format. "Doctor, is that why you did it?" Rose still received no answer and, in all honest, she didn't expect one. So she changed the topic slightly.

"What do we do now?"

"I don't know." Was the Doctor's almost inaudible response.

Rose hated this; hated seeing the Doctor this way. There was no life in him; no 'get-up-and-go' that she was so used to seeing from him. This Doctor was a broken man, she had never seen him this way before. She had seen him broken before and knew that some of that was still there within him, but she had never seen him like this. Now he had truly lost everything and not even she could help him through this, it seemed.

"I'm sorry," Rose whispered to him as she climbed off the bed, giving the Doctor one last look of sorrow – to which he didn't see – and left the room, fighting the urge to look back at the Doctor, knowing that it would be too hard to leave for dinner otherwise.

As she shut the door, she didn't hear the Doctor whisper two words after her.

"Don't go,"


	2. TWO

_**A/N: Hi all! So here is chapter two. It has been a rather difficult chapter to write considering it is set pretty much immediately after the first one. I'm hoping that things should start to pick up a bit in the next chapter, but it rather depends on where it takes me. I have a detailed plan for the second half of the story, but this first half is proving rather difficult to plan in detail. The possibilities are fairly open so new ideas keep replacing old ones and so on and so forth. I hope it's alright though and I apologise for any mistakes made; they do happen occasionally as this is unbeta'd.**_

 _ **Anyway, allons-y**_  
 _ **Enjoy!**_  
 _ **(and as usual, I own nothing. Doctor Who and it's characters belong to the BBC)**_

* * *

A knock on the door brought the Doctor out of his trance. He hadn't been particularly focused on anything since Rose had left for dinner and in some respects he welcomed the quiet that he had been presented with. In other respects, however, he wished that Rose was still here with him. He was aware that it was probably hard for her to know what to say around him right now and he was thankful that Rose understood. Despite that, he still wanted her here; even if neither of them said a word to each other, at least he wouldn't feel as along with her around.

The knocking came again and the Doctor pushed himself off the bed to go open the door.

On the other side of the door stood Rose, holding out plate of food in one hand and a glass of what the Doctor assumed was lemonade in the other.

The Doctor took in the scene in front of him, looking from Rose to the food and drink and back again. His expression was one of confusion; his left brow ever-so-slightly raised. Rose smiled a little when she took note of the Doctor's expression.

"It's for you." She said. "You didn't come down for dinner so I decided to bring you up something in case you were hungry."

Despite himself, the Doctor couldn't help but smile at Rose. She really did care about him and he knew she was worried. He had been so wrapped up in his own world for a while now that he hadn't really considered how Rose was feeling about all this. Was she still annoyed with him for sending her away? The way she looked at him didn't point to any indications that that might be the case, but maybe she was just pushing her real feelings away for his sake?

"Thank you." He replied, taking the plate and glass from her. "You okay?" The Doctor asked her a moment later. It was a question he probably should have asked her earlier, but now was as good a time as any.

"I'm okay, don't worry about me." Came her reply. "I'm more worried about you."

"Oh, I'm alright." Was his obvious reply. It was a lie, of course, and both of them knew it.

Rose was about to challenge the Doctor's response and try to get him to open up a little more, nit she stopped herself. There was a look in the Doctor's eyes that she had seen on a number of occasions during the time that she had known him. It was the look that said not to push the matter any further and that he wasn't ready to talk about this just yet. She had learnt rather quickly that pushing the Doctor was not the right thing to do if he did not want to talk. And she respected that. Just like he respected her when she didn't want to talk.

Rose just hoped that the Doctor would open up about his current situation sooner rather than later.

"You can come in if you like; you don't have to stand there." The Doctor told her, changing the subject.

"No, I'd better be going to bed. It's been a long day." Rose replied, pointing to the door to her bedroom across the hall. "I just wanted to bring you up some food so you didn't forget to eat."

"Rose…" the Doctor started, but Rose cut him off.

"No Doctor, we've both had a terrible day and I'm tired. I suspect you are, too. Look, I'll see you in the morning, yeah?"

The Doctor nodded, albeit somewhat sadly, knowing that Rose was right. The two of them were shattered, but physically and emotionally and he didn't want to stand in the way of Rose being able to get the rest that she so desperately craved right now.

"Okay, I'll see you in the morning." He smiled weakly at her before bringing her in a hug. Well, it was almost a hug, the plate and glass he still held in his hands making it difficult for him to get a proper hold on her.

When he eventually allowed himself to let her go, Rose smiled a small smile up at him before making her way across the hall towards her room. The Doctor continued to stand in his doorway, watching her as she walked away. Once she was gone, he sighed quietly before making his own way back inside his room, shutting the door behind him.

…

It was the silence in his head that kept him awake. The never ending silence. Without the constant presence of the TARDIS, the Doctor's mind felt completely blank for the first time in centuries. It wasn't a pleasant feeling. He knew he was going to have to get used to the silence in his head if he were to have any chance of being able to find it in himself to accept and embrace a new life on this planet.

It didn't have to happen immediately, did it?

But what would that mean for Rose if he couldn't adjust? Because that was the reason he was here. If Rose's lever hadn't fallen, and Pete hadn't saved her and brought her here, then he wouldn't have felt the need to come here because Rose would still be with him in their own universe. But these things had happened and the Doctor had had a choice to make in that split second. An impossible choice. Except it wasn't all that impossible – not when he thought about it. He would always choose Rose even if that meant he had inadvertently chosen to give up his whole life in order to spend it with this wonderful human woman who he had…

He knew it couldn't last; Rose's life span was merely a fraction of his own. It would all end in heartache and tears one day – his heartache and his tears. There was no way of escaping it and no possible miracle that could happen that could prevent the inevitable.

 _But one miracle had already happened today._ The Doctor reminded himself. _Pete had come back and saved Rose just before she fell into the Void._

 _Maybe the universe did know how to be kind to him._

 _It certainly did have a funny way of showing it, though._

Clearing the thoughts out of his mind, the Doctor sniffed and turned his head from where he lay to look at the closed door to his side. In doing so, his thoughts immediately turned back to Rose. She had told him not to worry about her, but the truth was, he could never stop. It was his fault she was here. Granted, he hadn't meant for any of this to happen, but she had chosen to stay with him and therefore, just be taking her to Torchwood that day, he was responsible for what had happened to her – and to him.

Facing back up to the ceiling in his darkened, almost bare room, the Doctor suddenly felt a wave of loneliness pass over him. He was used to feeling lonely, especially since the end of the Time War; but in the last year or so – since he had met Rose – he had suddenly become that bit less lonely. Christmas was when it hit him: he had a family. A rather odd family, but a family nonetheless. And since then, he had realised that he wasn't quite as alone as he made out.

But right here and right now, he felt that loneliness return. It was absurd in a way since everyone was within this one building, but he still felt it. Maybe it was to do with the lack of TARDIS in his mind, or maybe it was because he had seemingly distanced himself from everyone else – including Rose – in the last few hours. Regardless of the reasons behind it, he didn't want it to continue.

So he got up and headed for the door. He wasn't quite sure he really knew what he was doing, but he knew he couldn't stay here on his own. He needed someone with him; someone to talk to. Someone to distract his mind from his wandering thoughts; someone who wouldn't mind all that much finding a lonely Time Lord come into their bedroom in the wee hours of the morning.

He was standing in front of Rose's door before he knew it. He considered knocking, but found that there wasn't much point and so quietly turned the doorknob, wincing slightly as the door creaked a little upon pushing it.

The Doctor walked into the room, allowing his eyes to adjust the lack of light in the room. The hallway had been a little brighter than his room and Rose's seemed a little darker than his anyone. He wasn't sure if that was just because of the light in between or because it was in fact darker. Either way, it didn't take long for his eyes to adjust to the change in light and he soon saw Rose's figure asleep on the mattress ahead of him.

It was the first time he had been into her room and the Doctor found that it was much the same as his. He found it striking, however, the difference between this room and the one she had slept in on the TARDIS. That room had been full of light with trinkets and photographs scattered all around the room. There had been clothes on the floor occasionally and the smell of perfume hit the Doctor's nose every time he went in there. He had always moaned about that smell; always joking that he could smell it from the console room half the time. Rose, of course, would just scowl at him, sometimes playfully throwing one of her pillows at him, making him feign fright but ultimately making him smile. He never thought he would miss that smell really, but now it wasn't here anymore, the Doctor couldn't help it.

The room he found himself in now had none of what that room had had. It was empty. Unlived in. And it brought home the reality of what had happened even more.

Sighing silently, the Doctor quietly walked over to Rose's bed. He had thought that he might wake her up in the hope that she might be willing to distract him from his thoughts, but as he looked at her, he couldn't help but notice how peaceful she looked. How could he disturb her? She deserved her rest after all, she too had been through hell today and it was only fair that she got to sleep some of it off. Just because he couldn't sleep didn't meant that she shouldn't be able to.

But the Doctor still didn't want to be alone and so decided to walk round to the other side of the bed – the side that Rose wasn't on – and slowly climbed under the covers. He'd been gone by the time she woke up, therefore never knowing that he had been with her; never knowing the reasons why he had been with her.

However, things never quite worked out as well as the Doctor had thought. The moment he managed to get into the bed, he felt Rose stir next to him. He stayed as still as he could, but it was already too late; there was a groan from Rose as he rolled over, her eyes opening and resting on the form of the Doctor lying next to her.

"Doctor?"

"Hi," he replied, a little nervously.

"W…what are you doing here?" Rose's voice was still groggy as she spoke, but getting slightly clearer, forming a whisper as she finished her question.

"Sleeping." It was meant as a declarative, but in fact came out as a question.

"How long have you been here?"

"Just recently. I think I woke you up. Sorry."

Rose rolled over completely so she was on her side facing the Doctor. The Doctor, however, stayed where he was on his back, avoiding her eye contact while fighting the urge to look right at her.

"You were lonely, weren't you?" She knew that was the case, but she wanted the Doctor to admit it for himself.

The Doctor, however, didn't say anything nor did he move; he just continued to look up and Rose half wondered if he was about to go on another rant about how the ceilings were too plain. He didn't.

"Doctor, look at me." He still didn't move. "Doctor."

Finally he turned to look at her and, for the first time, Rose could see the loneliness – the longingness – in his eyes. She hated seeing him this way. She wanted to do something to make things alright, but she knew she couldn't.

"Yes,"

At first she thought it was a response to her calling his name, but then she realised that it was the answer to her previous question. In all honesty, she hadn't expected him to answer her or to answer in such an honest way. It wasn't how he usually went about things. Maybe he was just tired.

"It'll be alright, you know."

"Will it?"

Rose just nodded. It would be, she was sure of it.

"Do you want to go out tomorrow? Just the two of us? I need to buy some clothes and other things and there might be a few shops in town that are advertising jobs. You'll need stuff too an' all." Rose said, changing the subject.

"You're too good to be working in a shop, Rose." The Doctor told her.

"What else can I do? I have no A Levels and my GCSEs aren't exactly the best." She argued.

"So?"

"So…I don't have any qualifications to do anything else, really."

"Doesn't matter."

"In this day and age, yes it does."

"This is a different world from yours, remember."

"It'll still be the same."

The Doctor said nothing back and just ran his fingers through Rose's hair, his fingers then lightly tracing down the sides of her face. She shivered slightly as the gentleness of his touch, but also leaned into it, immediately missing it when it was gone.

"You're the most incredible woman I know; if you can't get a job, then I don't know who can." He smiled slightly at her and for a moment Rose could almost forget the situation they both found themselves in.

The Doctor's smile faded, but his eyes were still firmly locked on hers.

"Have you thought about Torchwood?" The Doctor asked.

"More you than me,"

"You know a thing or two about aliens." The Doctor reminded her.

"Only if they look human, have two hearts and can go changing their face." She said. "And even then, I barely know anything."

"I think you know more than you think you do." Rose just shrugged and the Doctor could see that he wasn't going to get anywhere else with this conversation tonight. It seemed that both of them had obstacles to beat, but he had been so sure that he had managed to show Rose than she was better than she thought she was long before the events of today. Maybe she was becoming too much like him; able to hide how he really felt. He sincerely hoped not.

"Tell you what," the Doctor started. "We'll go out tomorrow, but we won't worry about jobs for a little while, okay?"

Rose just nodded. "Guess coming to terms with a life stuck here is more important right now?"

"Yeah," the Doctor agreed half-heartedly. "I'm sorry Rose, I'm sorry that we're stuck here."

"Like I said before: being stuck with you 's not so bad." She said, repeating her words from Krop Tor. The Doctor gave a small smile before pulling her into to him, her head resting on his chest over his right heart, her right hand over his left.

"Night Doctor," Rose whispered, already half way back to sleep.

"Goodnight Rose," he whispered in reply, wrapping an arm tightly around her shoulders and pressing a kiss to her hair.

It was still very early days, but for the first time since arriving on his planet, the Doctor had the sudden feeling that he might actually be able to cope with this new life. Of course, any happiness he had found would come crashing back down once Rose was gone in the future but, for now, he thought things might actually be alright.


	3. THREE

**_Sorry that I haven't updated in, like, a month (okay, so slightly under a month, but close enough). I've been dipping in and out of this chapter for a while so it's not like I've written the whole thing in two hours. Also, it's over 4000 words, partly because I couldn't find a decent place to stop and partly because once I'm in flow, I'm in flow._**

 ** _Also, it's a lot more lighthearted than the previous two, so much so in some places that I had to keep referring back to what had happened in order to make sure I didn't go off on a fluffy tangent._**

 ** _Anyway, I'll shut up now (thought who reads the A/N, eh?). Enjoy!_**

* * *

"Do you think he'll be okay?" Came Mickey's question to Rose the next morning after he met her in the kitchen while she began making banana pancakes. It was a habit more than anything and it wasn't exactly her favourite breakfast, either. She would be damned if she ever told the Doctor that, though; last time with the banana sponge cake had been bad enough:

 _Newly regenerated and still trying out his brand new taste buds, the Doctor had found himself in the kitchen making a sponge cake when Rose walked in. She couldn't help but stare in a mixture of horror and amusement at the sight before her. There were mixing bowls and other abandoned utensils scattered every which way on almost every surface in the reasonably sized TARDIS kitchen. Alongside many of these were small chunks of banana (he still has a fetish about those, then). There was also flour everywhere and, considering what the Doctor was making, she couldn't help but wonder how on earth that had come to be._

 _But perhaps the most strikingly amusing thing of all was the Doctor himself. Clad in his usual brown pinstripes that Rose has just about gotten used to (and yes, Casandra had been right, he did look rather…'foxy' in them) he also had an apron tied around himself. His back was to her so Rose had no idea what was on the front of it; she hadn't even known that he owned one. He rarely ever did any form of baking – or cooking general, actually – in his last body: though there had been that one time with the chicken that Rose was, to this day, still trying to recover from. After that, he hadn't gone near anything to do with food – unless he was eating it._

 _Until now, that was._

" _Doctor, what are you doing?" She asked, still standing in the doorway. She wasn't too sure she wanted to get any closer, if she was honest with herself. After that one incident, the Doctor and kitchen appliances had never been the best of friends._

 _Realising that he wasn't alone, the Doctor turned around with a winning smile on his face. Rose couldn't help but stifle a laugh when she noticed that some of the cake mixture he had been preparing was already in his fringe (also, rather disappointingly, she noticed that his apron was just plain blue – but TARDIS blue nonetheless)._

" _Rose!" He said happily, running his messy hands through his hair. "I making banana sponge cake and look:" he gestured around the kitchen, arms wide, "no kitchen equipment has yet been blown up – along with any chickens in the process." The last bit an afterthought, mainly for himself._

" _Yeah, yet." Rose replied, taking notice of the Doctor's rather apt word choices._

" _Oh ye o' little faith, Rose Tyler. I'll have you know that a few regenerations ago I was named the Best Baker in the Kosoplatian Galaxy! Mainly because they had never heard of bananas and were in awe at this wonderful, magnificent, brilliant piece of fruit only found on Earth. In all honesty, though, they'd never even heard of the Earth, but then there are worst things in the universe to not have heard of. Plus they really wouldn't get on with humans anyway – too liberal in certain respects. Did you know that the Kosoplatian Galaxy isn't really a galaxy, it's just one planet in which a whole range of species live? I mean, the planet it massive! Pretty much the size of a galaxy! Which, now thinking about it, is probably the reason it's called the 'Kosoplatian Galaxy' rather than the 'Kosoplatian Planet', but hey ho…" He was about to continue his ramble about the Kosoplatian Galaxy when he finally took note of the expression on Rose's face. "You're staring at me, you okay?"_

" _Yeah, you're just rambling again." She told him._

" _Ah, sorry," he apologised. "Got a bit carried away there. Tell you what, one day, I'll take you to the Kosoplatian Galaxy and you can see for yourself and I can show you my name on the winner's board they have. But, not right now, because now Rose Tyler, I have to put this marvellous concoction into the oven which I promise I will not blow up this time."_

 _True to his word, nothing was blown up. However, the Doctor being the Doctor was soon distracted by something in the console room and had dragged Rose along with him, resulting in the cake being completely forgotten._

 _That was until the smell of smoke made its way into the console room._

" _Doctor," Rose said, her tone level._

"… _And that is why I am not—"_

" _Doctor,"_

"… _in anyway accountable for what happened to—"_

" _Doctor!"_

" _What?" He asked, pushing himself out from underneath the console where he had spent the last forty-five minutes or so – much to Rose's dismay._

" _Can you smell that?" She asked, sniffing._

 _The Doctor, too sniffed, more loudly than she. "Oh it's just smoke coming from the kitchen." He stated as if it was the most ordinary thing in the known universe._

 _Their eyes met then, both widening in horror as they both realised the nature of the Doctor's words._

" _The cake!" They said in unison. The two of them were soon up and into action, sprinting down the corridors towards the kitchen. If you hadn't known what they were running for, it would've been perfectly acceptable to assume that they were running from a group of Cybermen on hot pursuit._

 _It had been too late to save the cake as, when the Doctor pulled it out of the oven, both of them coughing and spluttering from the volume of smoke that escaped from the oven upon release, it was definitely burnt to a crisp._

" _Damn!" The Doctor cursed, setting the hot cake on the stove before closing the oven. Still coughing, he batted the smoke away with his arm._

" _Trust you to get distracted." Rose said as her coughing died down._

" _Ah well, it's still edible." The Doctor removed the oven gloves he was wearing and began to take two plates out of one of the cupboards above his head. Rose just gaped at him._

" _You're telling me that you still want to eat_ that _."_

" _Yeah! I mean, why waste it?" He then went on to explain about how things containing bananas should not, by any circumstances, be wasted._

 _By this point, Rose had given up listening altogether and reluctantly took the slice of burnt cake that the Doctor had passed her once it had cooled down enough. He was still rambling, though what about, Rose no longer had any idea._

 _Upon taking a bite, Rose couldn't help but grimace. It tasted like…well she hadn't tasted anything like it before and she didn't want to taste anything like it again._

 _Unfortunately for her, the Doctor caught her expression._

" _Oi, what's wrong with it? It's perfectly fine." The Doctor told her, a look of mock offense written all over his face._

" _Burnt bananas, Doctor, are not very nice." She said, putting down the plate of offending cake before making her way to the tap to get a glass of water. "Plus, I've never been a huge fan of bananas in cake."_

" _Rose Tyler, I have never heard such a thing! There is nothing wrong with burnt bananas I'll have you know! Bananas are great whether they are cooked, not cooked or, in this particular case, burnt. In any case, they are still good! And how can you_ not _like bananas in cake?!"_

 _He continued for about ten minutes and it was then that Rose learnt never to criticise anything to do with bananas again. Regardless of what she thought they tasted like. It was better that way._

"Rose? Rose are you okay?" Rose was brought out of her thoughts by the sound of Mickey's voice next to her. When she finally came back to the present she could hear the sound of the oven beeping, telling her that the pancakes were ready.

"What?" She replied as if she hadn't heard him (which for the most part was true).

"You okay? You seemed to have zoned out for a moment." Mickey told her.

 _Oh._ She hadn't realised that she had been in her memories for quite that long.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry." She said. "I was just remembering something that happened a while back." She explained to him vaguely and Mickey could tell that she didn't want to go into any more detail about what it was she had been thinking about.

"Right, let's get these things out of the oven. Don't want them coming out black." As she bent down to take the plate of pancakes out of the oven, she couldn't help but wonder if it really mattered how they turned out. She wasn't feeling that hungry; she had seen that Mickey had already made himself some toast and she very much doubted that the Doctor would feel like eating right now.

As for her mum and Pete…well, let's just say that Rose didn't think that they would be getting up any time soon.

…

As she plated the pancakes up, she was left on her own. Mickey had told her that he had to be at work in a few hours and so had left her to go and get ready, leaving her in the kitchen on her own.

She plated up the pancakes on two plates. One plate being for her, the other the Doctor. Regardless of either of their mental states right now, she knew they couldn't afford to not eat.

Once she had divided the pancakes by half, she two the two plates by hand and went to find the Doctor.

…

He was outside in the garden sat on the bench, having left Rose's room before she had woken up. Rose herself remembered sitting on that bench the last time she had come here, talking to her parallel mother. She felt a wave of sadness come over her and she remembered how that conversation had gone and also because of the parallel Jackie's fate. She had soon been turned into a Cyberman and later lost her life completely. Numerous times on the way back to her real mother's flat Rose had to remind herself that the woman she had met here was, in fact, not her mother.

She swallowed back the memory and opened the French doors. It was a little difficult with the two plates but she eventually managed it.

Upon hearing the sound of the doors opening, the Doctor turned around to find Rose walking up to him, a plate in each hand.

"Morning," she said as she reached him. "I brought you some breakfast. Thought you might fancy some banana pancakes." She passed him one of the two plates before sitting down next to him with her own breakfast.

"Thank you, you didn't have to you know." The Doctor told her, smiling a thanks to her as he took the plate from her hands.

"I wanted to." Was all she said in return. The Doctor smiled at her again before picking up one of the pancakes and biting a large chunk from it.

"Sorry, I didn't realise I'd forgotten knives and forks." Rose said.

"It's okay, don't worry. No harm done. Nothing wrong with eating with your fingers. You do it with toast, don't you?" The Doctor said. Rose gave out a small giggle and thanked herself that she hadn't decided on putting syrup on them.

They didn't say anything else to each other for a short while after. Both of them were content enough to eat their pancakes while staring ahead at the land in front of them. Occasionally one would look at the other when that other wasn't looking; half checking to see how the other was bearing up that morning and half because it was just plain difficult not to.

Eventually, it was the Doctor who broke the silence.

"So, you said last night that you wanted to head out today – get some stuff?" He reminded her. "Still up for it?"

Rose finished her mouthful and looked up at the Doctor. If she was honest with herself, she hadn't expected him to mention anything about last night and she hadn't been sure when he had agreed to go out with her last night that he would actually be feeling up to it when the morning came. She didn't say anything about that though.

"Yeah, sounds good. Just let me get ready; I'll meet you in, say, forty-five minutes?" Rose said as she began to stand up from the bench.

"Alright, but if you take any longer, I am leaving without you." The Doctor told her, trying to sound as threatening as he could, but he knew he was failing.

"As if." Rose said, giggling at him with her usual tongue in tooth smile. Deciding the threating façade was not working, the Doctor couldn't help but smile back at her.

And for a moment – one single moment – things felt normal again.

…

As promised, Rose met the Doctor forty-five minutes later and the two of them left the house. Mickey had since left for Torchwood, Jake having picked him up fifteen minutes prior, so Pete had offered to give the two of them a lift into town before he, too, made his way to work. Since the People's Republic had taken control of Torchwood prior to two universes colliding, Pete had worked his way up to the top of the Torchwood hierarchy and was only a couple of steps away from becoming its Director. He hadn't told them yet, but he knew it would only be a matter of months with the current Director due to retire and Pete being the favourite to take over.

As they drove away from the mansion, Rose couldn't help but look back at the place she knew she was going to have to learn to call home. She thought of her mother still inside and how she seemed to be taking this all in her stride. Well, Rose thought, I suppose you would if it meant you got to be with the man you loved after having not been with him from two decades.

With that thought still in mind, Rose couldn't help but risk a look up at the Doctor sat next to her. She loved him, of course she did, so maybe things could've been a lot worse. At least for her they could've. She didn't expect the Doctor to feel the same way about her; she hoped – of course she hoped, who wouldn't? – but she never actually expected it of him. In fact she highly doubted he held any feelings for her that were stronger than friendship.

 _But he didn't have to press that button, did he? He must've known that, by doing that, he would trap himself here._

She's tried asking him about it yesterday, but he hadn't answered her and, as with everything else, she hadn't expected him to.

Rose hadn't realised she'd been staring up at him for quite so long until he eventually turned to look down at her.

"You okay?" He asked, his voice low so Pete wouldn't here.

"Wh-? Oh yeah, I'm fine, sorry." She told him quickly.

The Doctor nodded, though seemed unconvinced, before turning away from her and looking back out of the window.

Rose decided then that she would either have to wait for the Doctor to open up about his reasons for pressing that button or confront him.

She rather hoped it wasn't to be the latter.

…

If she was honest with herself she had expected shopping with the Doctor would be a somewhat awkward affair. However, she was pleasantly surprised that, as they went in shop after shop, he never complained.

Much.

He complained a little when Rose forced him towards the men's changing rooms, a few pairs of jeans and some shirts thrown over the arm she wasn't using to push the Doctor along. He had been adamant that he didn't need to buy anything, but Rose had pointed out the obvious: he couldn't stay in the same suit day in day out.

She had wanted to let him have his way; buying him clothes was all but admitting to the fact that they were stuck here permanently. If he stayed in his suit, then it would feel like they would be going home any day.

But they weren't and they both had to accept that.

This was just one step towards that acceptance.

She knew he felt the same, too, she could see it in his eyes. He was trying to act the same way he always had done, but they both knew it was merely an act. Or at least it was for the most part.

Eventually, the Doctor found himself behind one of the curtains with a small stack of clothes sitting, waiting on the soft seat beside him.

He sighed before slowly starting to unbutton his suit jacket, hanging it up on one of the pegs on the wall beside him. He then took off his shirt, converse and trousers before pulling on pair of jeans and a shirt that Rose had picked out for him.

Staring at himself in the mirror, the Doctor couldn't help but let his mind wander to how human this all seemed. Here he was, trying on clothes that he never thought he would ever wear – at least not in this regeneration – in a department store with his best friend waiting for him just on the other side of the curtain. How had it come to this?

Sighing one more time, the Doctor pulled back the curtain. The first thing he noticed was the look of shock on Rose's face and for the first time since he had regenerated, he couldn't help but feel slightly self-conscious about his appearance.

"No?" He tried, hoping that Rose would say something.

"I…wow, I didn't think you could look so…" she trailed off, unsure of the word.

"So…? So ridiculous?"

"I was going to say 'normal' – you don't look ridiculous at all." And he didn't. Not in the slightest.

The Doctor seemed to ponder this for a moment, thinking over Rose's words. His eyes then glistened with what Rose could only describe as cheekiness; his lips curling upwards slightly in a slight smile.

"Good normal or bad normal?" He said. His tone was somewhat flirty and he couldn't help but lean against the side of frame, his folded with his legs crossed at his ankles. His expression melting Rose on the spot.

Rose couldn't help but smile, looking away from him for just a second, before turning back to face him – a smile still ghosting on her face.

"Just normal." She replied flirtatiously. The Doctor grinned at her. It was then that Rose realised that this was the first time she had seen him smile properly since arriving; maybe he would be able to adjust quicker than she thought.

A silence passed between them, but it wasn't awkward, as they continued to smile at one another; both lost in their own little world.

It was the Doctor who broke the spell, but a ghost of a smile still remained.

"Right then, I suppose I better try on the rest of this pile. Give me a moment." He then pulled back the curtain hiding himself from view. It was only a moment, however, before he poked his head round the side, looking at Rose.

"Oh, by the way, could you get me some converse? Size 11?" He asked.

"What's wrong with the ones you have?" Rose replied.

"I noticed a hole."

"A hole?"

"Yes a hole."

"Alright, I'll be back in a moment." Rose sighed. "Look after this." She passed him her bag before turning away from the changing room. "What colour do you want?" She asked, turning back around briefly to see the Doctor still looking at her.

"Whatever you fancy." Rose smiled at him before heading off. "Just not pink!" He called after her and Rose had to supress a laugh.

…

Clothes and essentials shopping done, the two of them decided that going back to the mansion was the best way forward. The Doctor had insisted that he'd carry all the bags they had with them through the town, much to Rose dislike. She had offered numerous times to take something from him, feeling bad for him having to carry everything, but he told her that there was no need and that he was perfectly fine.

They decided to hail a taxi back and soon found themselves in the back of a black cab with the shopping bags over their laps.

The journey wasn't long and they were soon stepping out of the car, paying the driver for their trip and walking towards the front door.

The Doctor desperately wanted to take hold of Rose's hand, but his decision to carry everything that they had bought over the course of the morning and early afternoon meant that he was left unable: much to his disappointment.

Jackie must have noticed them come back as the moment they stepped into the porch outside, the front door was opened wide with the smiling face of Jackie Tyler there to greet them inside.

"Wasn't expecting the two of you back for a little while yet." She said as she stood aside watching as the two of them made their way into the large hallway.

The Doctor put down the bags and looked towards Jackie.

"Trust me, if we had bought any more I wouldn't have made it to the taxi." He told her.

"You didn't have to carry all the bags, you know." Rose reminded him. "I did offer to take some."

"I know, but I felt it was my duty to carry them for you. I am a gentleman after all."

He gave Rose a mock look of offense when he noticed her trying to hold back a snort.

"Doctor, why don't you take those bags into either yours or Rose's room? I just need to have a word with my daughter." Jackie told him.

The Doctor shrugged but didn't say anything before bending down to pick up the bags once more and started to carry them up the stairs.

"I should probably help him." Rose said as her mum lead her away from the struggling Doctor.

"He'll be alright, I'm sure. I just need to talk to you about something." Jackie said, leading her towards the large kitchen a few rooms away.

Once they entered the room, Jackie immediately put on the kettle. _Somethings never change_ Rose thought as she rested against one of the counters.

"What's this about mum?" Rose asked, once Jackie passed her a mug of steaming tea.

"Is he alright?" Jackie asked her, sitting down on one of the stools that sat around the large island in the middle of the kitchen.

Rose sighed as she sat down on one of the stools next to her mother. She knew instantly who her mum was talking about. It was obvious to everyone that the Doctor hadn't taken to all of this easily. He may seem more like himself than he did yesterday, but there was still a sadness in his eyes that you didn't have to be a genius to spot.

"I don't know," Rose replied honestly. "He's been okay since we've been out; more like the way he used to act before the ordeal at Torchwood. But he's always been reasonably good at hiding how he feels and, just because he seemed to be smiling and that today, doesn't mean he feels any better than he did when he arrived."

"Why did he do it?" Jackie asked her. If she was honest with herself, she already knew the answer to that one, she just wanted to know if he had said anything to Rose that might confirm her thoughts.

"I don't know." Rose said taking a sip of her tea. I tried asking him about it but he didn't really give me an answer." She sighed before continuing. "I went to see him once he went to his room yesterday, he wasn't in a good place. He said that he thought he was going to lose me, but I don't know if that's the reason he would have done something like this."

"Sounds like a good enough reason to me." Jackie replied, putting her cup to her lips and taking a sip.

"Why would he give up his entire life, though?" Rose asked. "I mean, he won't ever see the TARDIS again. The only thing left from his home and he's lost it. He's lost everything."

"Maybe not _everything_." Jackie said, giving her daughter a pointed look.

"What?"

"I think you know 'what', you just don't want to admit it." Rose just looked down at her cup of tea sitting on the marble surface in front of her.

"Look, I know how you feel about him – always have – even before he changed and I could tell, even then, that he felt something towards you too."

"You think he…?" Rose started, but her mother cut her off.

"I don't think, I know." Jackie said, a small smile on her face as she took her now empty mug and placed it in the dishwasher. "Oh and, by the way, talk to your father when he gets home about Jobs at Torchwood. He says there's a few going. You and the Doctor should fit right in."

A moment later she was gone, leaving Rose alone with her thoughts in the large kitchen.

Yes, she would talk to her father when he got back about Jobs at Torchwood. The Doctor had brought up the possibility of it last night.

But as for what her mother had said, surely the Doctor couldn't feel that way about her? And surely she couldn't be the sole reason as to why he decided to give up everything he had had in the other universe?

Rose tried to dismiss the thoughts from her mind, but she couldn't help but come back to them. Her mother had made sense – always did when it came to this type of thing. When it came to Rose's personal relationships, she hadn't yet been wrong. This was a woman who knew what she was talking about.

And it wasn't as if the thought hadn't crossed her own mind:

" _I thought you were gone forever and that I would never see you again."_

" _Doctor. Doctor look at me. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere._

" _Is that why you did it?"_

Rose decided that the only way she was going to find out was to talk to him about it. But she wouldn't do it right now; he had been more himself today and Rose didn't want to be the one to bring him back to reality. He deserved to have a good day.

She always knew she deserved answers, but she figured they could wait.


	4. FOUR

_**First thing's first: sorry for the wait. Been getting stuff ready for Uni since I've finally found out where I'll be going next month and I've been struggling a little with this chapter (though, quite frankly, that's an old excuse...I can't wait for the day when I say 'this was the easiest chapter I've ever written'. It won't happen, but it'd be nice).**_

 _ **Anyway, sorry if this seems a bit slow. I'm planning on giving things a kick start as of next chapter; I just didn't want to rush into anything too soon.**_

 ** _Also, to my Guest reviewer from last chapter: Thank you so much for your comment. I can't give too much away, for obvious reasons, but I will say that I have focused somewhat more on the events of series 4 than series 3. And don't worry, I have a plan for how I want it to end so I'm hoping it all works out accordingly. Thank you again. I hope you continue to enjoy :D_**

* * *

For the Doctor each passing day went by slower than the last and it was only a matter of time before he knew he couldn't take it anymore.

They had been on this planet for little under three weeks now and nothing had happened.

He still didn't have a job, although it was looking more likely with each passing day. Pete and come to him and Rose when he had returned from Torchwood the day after they had arrived. He had explained to them that he wanted to try and get both of them jobs there, but that it was just an impossibility until the current Director decided that it was time to retire. Neither of them had any documents to say that they were eligible to work in the country and with each member of Torchwood having a basic level of psychic training, there was no way that the Doctor's psychic paper would be able to get them in either. So they were left without jobs until the day that Pete became Director (for they all knew that that was what would happen eventually).

Unlike the Doctor, Rose had considered working elsewhere. An employer in a local shop would be fooled enough by the psychic paper, allowing Rose to get herself in, but the Doctor had been adamant that he didn't want her working in a shop again, much to her annoyance. She wasn't annoyed at the fact that he kept telling her that she was too good for that kind of job; she was annoyed that it seemed to be him making the decisions for her. Rose knew he didn't mean it, and was only trying to make her feel better about herself and to show her that she didn't need to constantly put herself down, but being told constantly every time she brought the conversation up was slowly becoming frustrating.

Jackie, on the other hand, was having the time of her life. No longer having to work (although she really wouldn't find going out to do something with her day occasionally), Jackie had been using her time to meet up with her parallel double's friends. It had been hard at first, knowing that these people had presumed her to be dead, to keep from letting it slip that she was in fact a different Jackie from a completely different world.

She also didn't have many of the same memories as her double. The last twenty years here and been completely different from what she had experienced back at home. This was a world where Pete had made a name for himself and hadn't died in that accident back in 1987; it was a world in which she was supposed to have been childless and so it was difficult coming up with a believable story that meant that Rose was her daughter. Eventually she had come up with the story that she had felt she had been too young to raise a child, had put Rose up for adoption and 20 years later she had finally made her way back to her birth mother and father. It seemed the kind of story that she would read in her old gossip magazines back home, so it was hardly that much of a shock when the story did make the celebrity news headlines. The shock was finding out that she was practically a celebrity.

But while this was a world in which her early life and marriage was almost entirely the same, it was a world in which she was going to have to keep living the lie she had found herself in. Sometimes she wondered if she would be able to continue to pull it off.

Thankfully, those times were few and far between, because, right now, she couldn't be happier.

….

Rose sat on her bed with a book she had picked up open in her hands. She stared at the words on the page but her mind wouldn't take them in. It was only after a while that she realised she had read the same sentence over and over again, getting no further with the tale in her palms.

She sighed. Nearly three weeks they had been here and it was the longest three weeks of her life. It wasn't so much the fact that she no longer had the whole of time and space at her finger tips that bothered her, it was more the fact that the Doctor was becoming more and more distant with every new day. The first few days of them being trapped here had given her some hope that he might adjust to his new environment; particularly their second day and their shopping trip. Back then, things seemed like they might be okay, but it was a couple of days after that that the Doctor started to distance himself.

It had been subtle at first. Some nights he might not come down for dinner or he decided to spend the day in his room, but on other days he would be willing to explore the city with Rose before retreating to his room after bidding her goodnight.

He hadn't come into her room since their first night here and he certainly hadn't gotten into bed with her as he had done then. The latter part didn't surprise her at all, but the fact that he hadn't even stepped into her room once – not even to wake her up in the morning like he so often had done back when they had had the TARDIS – worried her somewhat. It was only one of the signs that told her he was finding this whole situation difficult to get used to.

She felt at a loss at what to do. She didn't want him to slip away, but at the rate things were going right now, it felt like that was the only inevitability.

Eventually, she had had enough. In a moment of frustration Rose put down her book and made her way out of her room. She needed to find the Doctor, whether she planned to get him to talk to her or not, she needed to find him; she was going made with boredom herself.

She found him out in the large garden at the back of the house, sitting on the raised ledge by the pond in the furthest corner of the garden. It was one of the most shaded spots outside and one which couldn't be easily seen to those who were indoors; the perfect hiding place when you wanted to be alone. Of course, Rose knew this; she had found herself in the same spot at least once in the last three weeks, but it was a place she knew the Doctor came to on an almost regular basis.

"Hey," she said as she walked up to where he was sat.

"Hi," he replied shortly, barely sparing her a glance as she came to sit beside him.

"You okay?" It was a futile question, she knew, but it didn't stop her from asking.

The Doctor, however, didn't say anything and gave a nonchalant shrug. Rose hadn't expected him to say anything, but that didn't mean she liked his silence.

But there was a long pause filled with an awkward silence that Rose liked even less before it was her who spoke again.

"How long d'you reckon it'll be before we start working at Torchwood, then?" She asked, hoping to engage the Doctor in some kind of conversation.

Again, he said nothing and merely shrugged.

Rose sighed. She wasn't going to get very far with that conversation.

"Do you want to go out for dinner tonight? Mickey was telling me about this place the other day and…well, I thought you and I could try it out, see what it's like." Rose started. "I mean, we don't have to, it's just a thought…y'know…we could always…instead we could…"

"Rose, dinner's fine." The Doctor told her, cutting off her awkward ramble. He looked down at her for the first time and the ghost of a smile played on his lips.

"Okay, what time do you want to go?" She asked. Although she wasn't feeling particularly hungry, Rose wanted the Doctor to tell her as soon as she was ready – or something along those lines. Anything that would mean she didn't have to hang around for much longer and could get him away from the mansion.

"Anytime," the Doctor replied. Rose could tell that he wasn't particularly bothered about going out for dinner, but she could also tell that he was as eager to get away as she was. Neither of them had found adjusting to life here particularly easy and both liked the times when they could escape for even just a few hours. It was why they couldn't wait for their jobs to begin at Torchwood. Torchwood may have been the reason they had ended up here, but it wasn't this version of the institution's fault, and being surrounded by anything alien and extra-terrestrial would help both of them feel as though they still lead their old life.

Besides, working in such a place might enable them to find a way back. Both of them held the hope that one day they would be able to make it back, but neither ever spoke of such hopes out loud for fear that someone might turn round and state just how impossible it was.

"Alright," Rose said, standing up. "Give me half an hour and we'll make a move. That alright with you?"

"Sure," was the Doctor's monosyllabic reply as he stayed where he was, looking up at Rose for only a second before looking away again.

When the eye contact between the two of them was cut off, Rose took that as her cue to head back inside.

She took a few steps towards the house before allowing herself a quick glance back at the Doctor. He was still sat in the same position and Rose couldn't help but feel a pang of sorrow on his behalf. Maybe getting out of the mansion would do something for him; it was doing him no good being here day in day out.

…

Mickey had told Rose that the restaurant he had recommended was walking distance from the Tyler Mansion and that it would feel like no time at all before the doors to the old-style building came into view. He had also mentioned that the walk was a rather pleasant one, too, with no a large amount of traffic to worry about but rather picturesque country lanes and wide open spaces.

Of course, when Mickey had come here last, it had been the height of the summer, the sun shining, not the start of autumn with the rain pouring.

And also, his date (who Rose was still yet to meet. Mickey was always mentioning her and Rose was looking forward to the meeting; any feelings she felt for Mickey had long since passed, leaving only a strong friendship bond between the two of them, but she hadn't been able to find the time in between worrying about what the future now held and wondering if there was even the slightest chance of one day getting back.) had been more than willing to talk to him throughout their walk. Rose's date (well…not a _date_ as such, but one could pretend in times like this) on the other hand, had barely said a word since leaving the mansion. He walked beside her, their shoulders almost touching, but the hand that was usually found in Rose's was firmly held within his trouser pockets.

So much for thinking that they could pretend things were as they should be for a few hours.

The restaurant eventually came into view and Rose almost breathed an audible sigh of relief. As much as she loved being with the Doctor, this mood of his was slowly starting to get to her in a way that she never thought it could. Sometimes she just wanted to shake him and tell him to snap out of it. Yes, they were stuck here and there wasn't any way to back, but at least neither one of them died!

But she never would do that to him. He was still grieving for the loss of the TARDIS and the ever pressing silence that now filled his mind. Rose knew that and she knew that it wasn't the being stuck here that bothered him, but rather that he had no connections left with what was the last thing he had from his home. He was more alone now that he ever had been and Rose knew that. But that didn't stop her from wanting to try and get the Doctor to come to terms with everything that little bit sooner than he was currently.

They hadn't booked ahead, but thankfully there was a table for two next to one of the large windows, looking out at the view. It was a fairly secluded spot with only a few tables surrounding them and only the odd one or two actually occupied. The rest of the restaurant felt a world away with the loud noises of people chatting, knives and forks scraping and the very occasional sound of china breaking.

"Nice place." The Doctor said simply, looking up at the ceiling and slightly to the sides, getting as good of a look as he could of the scenery around him.

"Yeah, 's not bad." Rose replied, not really knowing where to go from here. Did she try and lead the conversation somewhere or wait for him to do so? It wasn't the first time the two of them had been to a restaurant together so why was it suddenly so awkward now in a way that it had never been before?

"Doesn't seem like the type of place Mickey would go." The Doctor said. At any other time, Rose would have told him not to be rude, but, frankly, it was a godsend to hear him speak, so she let the comment slide.

"He's got a girlfriend now; guess he wanted to impress her." Rose said.

"And are you okay with that?" The Doctor asked, looking directly at Rose for the first time since the mansion.

"Yeah, 'course I am. I'm happy for him. Me and him haven't been like that in a long time, you know that. I'm glad he's finally got someone who I hope will treat him better than I ever did." Rose said.

"Don't be like that, Rose." The Doctor told her.

"I'm not being like anything." Rose argued. "I should've been better to him."

"Give me one reason how."

"Erm okay, how about how I left him behind to run off with a man who I had just met?" Rose told him, more heatedly than she had originally intended.

Although she hadn't meant to be that harsh, she still felt guilty for her words once they were out. It was the look on the Doctor's face that got to her the most. To anyone else it would have been barely noticeable, but she could read him like a book – a rather complex book that took some time to finally understand, to be totally accurate, but a book nonetheless – so she didn't miss the flash of guilt that went from the Doctor's eyes as quickly as it had come.

"Doctor, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that." She apologised hurriedly. This wasn't how she wanted the evening to go. She wanted them to have a laugh, like they always used to; she didn't want to be adding anything on to the Doctor's current mood.

"I know you didn't," the Doctor said, but he kept his eyes down.

The sight of him this vulnerable pulled on Rose's heart strings and so she took one of the Doctor's hands resting on the table in her own.

"Doctor, are you okay?" She asked gently, expecting him to sniff loudly and pull himself together, acting like the last five minutes had never happened before pulling out the menu and asking her what she wanted.

But he did none of that. Instead, he looked at their hands clasped together on the table and said nothing for a short time.

"If it wasn't for me then you wouldn't be here right now." He said quietly, guilt evident in his voice.

"Doctor, we've been through this before. What happened that day was not your fault." She told him for the umpteenth time.

"I'm not talking about that day at Canary Wharf."

"Then what?"

The Doctor sighed and was about to lift his head to meet her eyes, but stopped himself before he let that happen. He couldn't bring himself to look at her.

"If I hadn't have met you then you wouldn't have been there at Torchwood and you wouldn't be here right now, away from everything that you ever had. You'd be living a normal life, with your mum, with Mickey…" he trailed off and Rose immediately took over.

"Stuck in a dead-end job, with no future prospects." She finished for him and at this the Doctor did look up at her, about to say something, but she cut him off. "Not once have I ever regretted my decision to come with you. The first time you met me, you told me to forget me – remember? But I didn't listen. When you sent me back that day on the Game Station, before you regenerated, I explained to mum and Mickey why I had to get back to you. I told them that you showed me a better way of living my life; I told them that I couldn't leave you."

"But if you hadn't have met me then you wouldn't be here right now." The Doctor argued back, but he knew his argument was weak, he just didn't want to admit that Rose was right in what she said.

"No, I would probably would have died that night you met me in the basement or, if I survived that, I probably would have been shot turned into a Cyberman or shot by a Dalek. Point is, me being there at Canary Wharf probably saved my life – and my mum's – so don't blame yourself for that. Ever."

Once Rose had finished, the Doctor continued to look her in eye. He didn't know what to say back to that so he chose to say nothing. He wondered, in those moments of silence and not for the first time either, how he had been lucky enough to land himself with this wonderful human being sat in front of him holding his hand.

All of a sudden, the Doctor moved his hand Rose had been holding so it was now him holding hers. Rose then felt him squeeze her hand gently and look at her, his eyes shining with a look of thanks and something else that Rose couldn't quite place.

She smiled gently at him and the Doctor gave a small smile back at her, the look in his eye that Rose still didn't quite know what to make of growing deeper.


	5. FIVE

_**Hi all! Welcome to chapter 5. I apologise if this seems a bit more like a filler (that's what it feels like to me, if I'm honest) but it's important in terms of plot.**_

 _ **I can't promise when the next chapter will be up as I'm now at Uni and Freshers Week is coming to a finish and my lectures begin on Monday. I'll try not to keep you hanging forever, though, so I'll do my best as usual.**_

 _ **Hope you enjoy this chapter :)**_

 _ **See you soon, hopefully :)**_

 _ **(As always, this is un-beta'd so I apologise for any mistakes that you may encounter that I haven't picked up on. And, of course I don't own Doctor Who)**_

* * *

It took them nearly four months from the day they arrived to finally be told that they could find employment at Torchwood.

It had certainly been a tough few months to say the least. Without the ability to find a new adventure with each new day that came and went, to Rose it as though she and the Doctor were drifting further apart. At times she barely saw the Time Lord; only the occasional glimpse of pinstripe (she had only seen him in the clothes he had bought here a handful of times) as the Doctor came and went from the mansion. Rose was used to having to deal with Doctor's moods, but never to this extent. Sure, back when they had the TARDIS, it wasn't unheard of for her not to see the Doctor one some days. But those days had become much less frequent, even before he had regenerated, and, even when one of those days would arrive, he was usually alright the following day. However, now his low mood had become a continuous thing and, while she would see glimpses of the man she had gotten to know, Rose was out of ideas.

So when Pete told her that he was to finally take over at Torchwood and would be able to get herself and the Doctor on the payroll, Rose thought she could just make out the light at the end of very long, very dark tunnel.

And it was.

Sort of.

While both of them loved the jobs they had been given, they had been put in completely different areas. It was no surprise that, while Rose was given a job with the Field Agents, the Doctor had been given the position of Senior Scientific Advisor; specifically anything that was of alien origin. She couldn't really complain much, however; her job meant that she could spend more time with Mickey which she was glad about. It was nice to spend time with him as a friend and she had finally been properly introduced to Mickey's girlfriend Marcia, who had moved from South Africa only a year ago. Rose was happy to say that she had Marcia had got on from the moment they met and had become fast friends, much to Mickey's relief.

The only downside, of course, was that she didn't get to see the Doctor nearly as much as she would've liked.

Occasionally, they would get the chance to meet up if they took their lunch breaks at the same time. But those times were few and far between mainly because their days consisted of different things: if she wasn't running half way round London, then he was in the laboratory busy doing whatever the hell it was he did. She had seen that little of him.

And on the rare occasions that they did get the chance to meet up properly, Rose always felt as though something was bothering the Doctor. Something other than their less-than-ideal situation. And, to Rose, it felt as though it affected him more when he was around her.

And no matter how hard she tried to brush the thoughts away, Rose couldn't help but wonder if the Doctor no longer wanted her around.

She didn't quite realise that it was the opposite.

….

Christmas was fast approaching and to say that the Doctor wasn't exactly in the Christmas spirit was somewhat an understatement. About a week ago, the entire mansion, from top to bottom, had been covered in every kind of Christmas decoration that you could imagine. They ranged from candles to lights to the twelve-foot Christmas tree sitting in the biggest sitting room in the entire building.

However, despite having been roped in to helping with the putting up of decorations, and watching as Rose grew more and more excited about the prospect of Christmas while he felt more and more like an outsider, he just couldn't seem to shake the non-Christmassy feeling from his mood. It annoyed him and made him feel worse as he dwelled on the fact that he couldn't feel the spirit of Christmas in the way that he wanted to. Having spent many years on Earth, it had been a tradition that he had become particularly fond of.

He was just thankful, that, being on a parallel world, hadn't meant that the whole idea of Christmas was something completely different to what he grown to know.

So anyway, while everyone he knew was slowly hyping themselves up for the Big Day, the Doctor had decided to stay behind at Torchwood in his lab, playing with the endless scientific equipment that he had been given when he had started working here.

And by 'playing', what that really meant was pointing his sonic screwdriver at whatever happened to be in front of him as he wandered around, praying to no God in particular, that he didn't blow up the building, himself with it. That would certainly not go down well; especially with Rose who was already pissed off with him as he had decided to stay behind for no reason at all. The Doctor distinctively remembered her saying something about how she hadn't had much chance to see him lately; that there wasn't yet any signs of an alien invasion that might threaten the planet over the festive period and that it was three days until Christmas.

Oh, and she also said something about how she missed him, but the Doctor was purposely trying to ignore that. It brought up too many complications about feelings and _that_ was not something the Doctor had the time or energy to think about right now. He had other things on his mind…he just didn't know what those other things were.

Actually no…scrap that. There was _nothing_ else on his mind other than _that._ He was just trying to pretend that there was so he could think of anything but.

Since arriving here, the Doctor had been finding it increasingly difficult to keep his feelings for Rose to himself. Being around her just made him yearn to tell her how he felt, but he knew he couldn't. There were so many reasons as to why confessing his feelings would be a bad idea. For one, the reoccurring fact that he would outlive her. He still had two regenerations left so who knew how long it would be until he used them up. There didn't exactly appear to be very much danger in this universe and so the Doctor doubted that getting shot by a Dalek or something or other was going to be a problem he needed to be worrying about. Therefore, the likelihood of him using one of remaining regenerations before Rose died was very slim indeed.

He sighed and shook his head, clearing the never ending thoughts from his head as best as he could, before continuing to prod things with the sonic.

Eventually, he could take it no longer and decided that he would go back to the mansion after all.

He checked the clock on the wall: it was ten o'clock. If he was lucky, by the time he got back to the mansion the rest of the household would have already turned in for the night, allowing him to slip inside his room completely unnoticed.

…

Christmas came and went and, soon enough, Rose had begun to have enough of the Doctor's mood. It wasn't his fault, so to speak, she was fully aware of that and didn't blame him at all. But she was tired of never knowing whether he would be in the mood to talk to her. She may have had her family around her, but Rose had never felt more alone. With her mum having settled into this new life straight away and Mickey having been living here much longer than she had, Rose almost felt like an outsider. The only other outsider was the Doctor, but although he was always somewhere nearby, she had never felt so far away from him.

…

Three days before New Year, Rose sat in one of the offices with her dad, Mickey and a bunch of the Science Team, discussing their new project. Rose had had it in mind, always wondering if such a thing were possible, for a few months now; pretty much as soon as she had found out that she would land up getting a job at the institution, she had begun thinking about this.

Before gaining her job, Rose had already spoken to Pete about the possibility of a dimension jump; something that wouldn't tear apart the two universes. Pete wasn't surprised to hear his parallel daughter discussing the topic of trying to get back her original universe. He had always known that it had been a struggle for her to fit in and adjust the life she was now leading and he had wanted to say there and then that, yes, such a thing could be possible – but of course, he couldn't. The chances of ever building something like that were almost none, and that was what he had told her. However, he had been careful enough not to give her an outright 'no'. Rose needed some kind of hope in her life and if this was what it was going to be, then Pete wasn't about to deny her that. She may be the child of a dead man, but Pete had taken quickly to Rose, almost surprising himself since the realisation of how this had come to be was a rather confusing one, and so didn't want to be the one to cause her even more pain.

It was back then that the prospect of bringing the Doctor involved had arisen. However, with his current mood, Rose knew that he would be no help. He was likely to just tell them that there wasn't even the slightest chance of getting something like that to work and that there was no point in wasting time on something that would, in the end, be futile.

Therefore, Rose had formed a team of the best scientists in the building, along with Pete and Mickey to help with the designing and construction of what soon become known as the 'Dimension Cannon'.

Many designs had been done before the Christmas period, but none of them seemed to be plausible.

However, a few days before Christmas, the team had finally decided upon a design that, if it worked, would allow for travel through the dimensions without causing too much damage.

It had to be said, it wasn't the most aesthetically pleasing machine in the entire universe and, during her travels in the TARDIS, Rose had certainly seen technology that outdid this by a long shot. It was a rather bulking-looking piece of tech which did in fact almost look like a cannon. There were switches and buttons all over the body and, with it, were what Rose assumed were wearable discs; much like the ones that this version of Torchwood had developed before the walls had closed completely. It really wasn't something to look at, but looks weren't the be-all or end-all of everything and Rose was more than happy just to see something on paper that might actually work.

So again, here they were, three days before New Year, discussing their project. It wasn't going well and some of the team were starting to lose hope that it would ever be at a stage where doing what it was designed to do was a possibility.

"Rose, I really think we should get the Doctor involved with this. He'll know where we're going wrong and what we can do to get it working." Nathan said. He was short man of only twenty-six and was one of the best minds Torchwood had ever come across.

"No, we can't." Rose told him. "All he'll say is that what we're doing is impossible and tell us that there's no point in even trying to go any further because it won't work." She sighed. "And besides, for once in my life, I'd like to be able to achieve something without needing his help and, if this does work – and believe me, we are going to make it work, regardless of how long it takes – it'll be a nice way to surprise him."

No one said anything else on the subject after that, though they all still wondered if, by getting the Doctor involved, they might just be able to achieve their goal.

Even Rose often wondered if her saying they should keep the Doctor away from the project was the right thing to do.

But, like she had said, if everything worked, then it would be a nice surprise for him. He was bound to start getting suspicious at any moment but if Rose could keep this from him just long enough to know if their project would work, then she would feel as though she had truly accomplished something without the Doctor's guidance and she would be able to give him the best gift she could possibly think of.

A trip home.


	6. SIX

_**So sorry, things have been a bit manic lately with Uni and all. I have reading every week and I've had essays and stuff as well as work so my full attention has been on writing them and getting the bus to and from Uni to work (at ten past six in the morning on a SATURDAY, believe me, that is less than fun!).**_

 ** _This chapter is also a little longer, so I hope that goes towards making up for the fact that I'm crap at updating...sorry again._**

 ** _Also - who's watching The Crown with Matt Smith? Seen the first two eps and loving it! (Also, still need to finish Victoria as well - bought the DVD from Tesco when I went home for my birthday weekend the other week...so good). And - I'M GOING TO SEE DAVID TENNANT IN THEATRE IN MARCH! YES! (Had to say that - I'm very excited)_**

 ** _Anyway, so here we are at long last. Hope you enjoy! :)_**

 ** _Emma :) x_**

* * *

He knew she was up to something. He had known her for long enough now to know the signs that meant she was keeping something from him. It was always the same: she would always try to avoid conversations that might lead to asking questions on what it was that was bothering her and the way she looked at him would change slightly. She always thought she was doing well at trying to hide what it was she was feeling or keeping from him, but he always knew when something was up and nine times out of ten he would already have an idea about what it was and so would tailor their conversations to purposely make her slip up. And it usually worked. However, since the conversations that passed between the two of them were so few and far between these days, it wasn't that sign that alerted him to the fact that something was being kept from him and something was bothering her. No, it was the fact that she kept looking at him with passing glances filled with guilt that told the Doctor Rose was hiding something from him. He had been trying to think of anything that had happened recently that would mean that Rose would have something to feel guilty for, but the Doctor couldn't think of a single thing and that's when he quickly concluded that she was up to something.

He had also concluded that he was definitely the only one who didn't know since he was the always the only one that was receiving end of these particular glances.

What could she possibly doing that meant she couldn't even tell him what it was?

Then it hit him.

Fuck. He had thought that by keeping his distance from Rose as much as he could would mean that he could try to get away from the feelings that constantly tried to make themselves known. He was only trying to keep their friendship intact the way it had always been but, instead, what he had done was push Rose away so far that now she didn't want to let him know what it was she was doing. Now it seemed that thought he didn't want anything to do with her anymore and was now trying to do the same thing to him as a way of trying to keep herself from feeling hurt by it. Shit, that wasn't what was meant to happen; he had never meant for anything like this to happen to them. He had to fix this and he had to fix this fast before Rose got any further ideas that were completely the opposite of what they both wanted.

God, for someone as clever as he was, he wasn't half stupid.

Packing up his stuff and grabbing his coat from the chair he had thrown it upon arriving in his lab, the Doctor all but ran out of the building in a bid to get back as quickly as he could. He realised now that he had to sort things out before they went too far and became unfixable.

…

"Wasn't expecting you home so early; thought you were gonna spend another night in that bloody lab of yours." Was the first thing the Doctor heard as he walked in through the mansion doors.

"Yes, well Jackie, I…look, where's Rose?" The Doctor not even bothering to explain to Jackie why he was home.

"Still at work," Jackie said. They were stood in the large hall, the Doctor still holding his bag containing everything he needed that he didn't like to keep at Torchwood.

"What's the time?" The Doctor asked, surely Rose was home by now?

"Two in the afternoon." Jackie told him slowly. She eyed the Doctor carefully, his eyes were wide and his hair even more wild than usual. He looked apprehensive and worked up and that worried her – a lot. Since they had been here, these past few months, Jackie hadn't seen that look to him; it was a look that she had only ever really associated with something to do with aliens attacking Earth and her daughter being in grave danger. Shit, the more she thought about it, the more she worried. "Why, what's wrong? Has something happened?"

"No! Don't worry, nothing's happened." Jackie sighed in relief. "I just needed to speak to Rose about something." He had visibly calmed down now but Jackie could still tell that there was something wrong. Her daughter may not be in danger, but there was something the Doctor was worried about and it obviously involved Rose somehow.

"Something's wrong, I can tell."

"Nothing's wrong." The Doctor tried to lie, but he knew it was futile. Jackie was as good as Rose when it came to being able to tell when he was lying; it was something he had realised not long after being here, actually. He had often wondered where Rose had gotten the ability to sense when things were off, and he had recently been given his answer.

"Don't give me that, Doctor, I know full well that something's wrong. Otherwise, you would've just waited for Rose to finish work before wanting to speak to her rather than getting all worked up, so go into the living room, sit down and I'll make you a cup of tea." Jackie told him before walking off towards the kitchen to start on the tea she had promised.

The Doctor sighed but went to the living room earlier. He knew better than to argue with Jackie Tyler after all. But, in all honesty, she was only doing what was best. It was clear to even him that he couldn't talk to Rose whilst he was this worked up, it wouldn't do any good, so maybe a cup of tea would be best.

Sitting on the sofa, the Doctor leaned back and put his hands over his face. He couldn't help but return to the thoughts of how badly he had messed everything up. And what was he supposed to actually say to Rose when he did get the chance to talk to her? Would she even want him to talk to her? Would he go away thinking he would have been better off not asking her what was going on?

He continued to go through scenario after scenario in his head, not one of them having much of a positive outcome, when Jackie came into the room pulling him away from his torturing thoughts.

"Here you go, love, get that down you." She said as she passed him one of the mugs and a plate of chocolate bourbons. Normally, she would think twice about giving the Doctor anything with a high sugar content, but considering the state he was in right now, she figured the sugar might actually do him some good.

"Cheers," he replied as Jackie sat down on the chair next to the sofa.

"So, you gonna explain why you suddenly have this burning need to talk to Rose? One that's clearly gotten you so worked up."

"I dunno, just…everything, I suppose." He told her, as vaguely as he could but he wasn't lying. It was a mixture of everything that had brought him to this point: being stuck here; being forced to live a life that wasn't his while trying to make it his; no TARDIS; the silence in his head due to the loss of his ship; Torchwood; his reasons for getting stuck here; the reasons why he could never tell anyone the truth about why he did it; his reasons for never being able to tell Rose how he felt…it had all piled up on him. He was ready to break.

When Jackie didn't reply, he realised that she wanted him to elaborate.

"I've messed everything up. I can tell that Rose is hiding something from me and I feel as it's because I've been pushing away lately. I thought it would be better to keep my distance from her – so we could keep our friendship the way it always has been. I never meant for her to feel as though she can't talk to me about anything anymore and I fear that's what I've done. I need to talk to her because I need to make things right and I need her to know that I'm sorry if I've made her feel as though I haven't wanted to be around her lately because, believe me, that couldn't be further from the truth." The Doctor the let out a long breath, realising that the majority of what he had said had been under one breath.

"You love her, don't you?" Jackie said carefully; she knew what a delicate subject she was getting herself into. She knew the Doctor well enough to know that he wasn't one to talk about his feelings; often choosing to avoid any conversations which might even give the slightest indication to his hidden feelings. However, Jackie wasn't stupid; she knew how the Doctor felt about her daughter. The look on his face when he realised he might lose her told her everything she needed to know. It was the same look Jackie knew she had worn when she had lost Pete all those years ago. A longing; a wishing that things could be different, that the situation wasn't what it was. She had seen it in him even before he had gone changing his face; she had seen it back at Torchwood in the other universe before he sent her away and she was seeing it now.

He didn't answer her question, but the way he looked down, away from her, was the only answer she needed.

…

For the remainder of the day, while waiting for Rose to return from work, the Doctor spent his time outside, sat at the large garden table, on the laptop. He didn't care that it was bitter cold or that he was getting stern looks from Jackie every time he refused to help with the setting up of the party Jackie and Pete were throwing tomorrow evening. He didn't see the point in throwing a party that wasn't on New Year's Eve, but that was the last thing he cared about right now, he was busy trying to find a way in which he could make it up to Rose. He had spoken to Jackie, asking her to ask Pete when he, too, returned home to let both him and Rose have New Year's off. He knew it was last minute and he knew that both of them had previously agreed to work but, if there was one thing that the Doctor knew Jackie was good at, it was persuasion. Plus, the Doctor didn't really think that Pete would be opposed to the idea, but he was too busy and just didn't have the time to ask him himself.

So here he was, out in the freezing cold, the dark beginning to draw in, tapping away on the keyboard, becoming more and more frustrated when his fingers missed the right keys in his haste to find something and his incapability to be patient with twenty-first century technology, trying to find something perfect that would sort out his and Rose's friendship before they reached a stage of never being able to fix things (not that much was broken in the first place, but the Doctor's mind worked in strange ways).

"Will you come in before you freeze to death?" Jackie said as she came over to him for the umpteenth time that early evening.

"No, not until I find what I'm looking for." The Doctor retorted.

"What exactly are you looking for?"

"I don't know."

Jackie just groaned and let the Doctor get on with it once again. Everyone else would be home soon and she would have the help she needed and wouldn't be the only one left to deal with a moody Time Lord.

…

"Oh thank God you're home!" Was the first thing Rose heard as she made her way through the doors into the hall.

"Why? What's happened?" Rose asked, suddenly feeling on red alert.

"Nothing like that, don't worry." Jackie told her quickly. "But can you please go and talk to that bloody alien of yours. He's been home for hours waiting for you to come home and he's starting to do my head in."

"Why's he home so early?"

"Said he needed to talk to you." There was a knowing look in Jackie's eyes which Rose chose to ignore the best she could, she did not need to get into a conversation of that nature with her mother right now.

"Why would he need to talk to me?" Rose asked, almost as if the very notion of such a thing were as alien to her as the men in question himself was. He hadn't spoken to her properly in a while now and he certainly hadn't specifically wanted to talk to her alone for almost even longer. She wasn't quite sure if she was to be relieved or, quite frankly, very worried.

"I dunno," she did, but Jackie chose to keep that particular knowledge to herself.

"Well, where is he?" Rose asked.

"Outside in the garden, on the laptop. Don't ask me why, I haven't got a clue what goes on inside that man's mind."

 _No, nor do I._ Rose thought as she made her way out into the garden.

She found the Doctor almost immediately. Dressed in his usual pinstripes, his silhouette was fading into the darkening light, but she could still make out the distinct shape of him hunched over the laptop, pushing down the scroll key in clear frustration.

"Doctor?" Rose asked carefully, trying to make her confusion as to what he was doing out here in the cold known.

"Rose!" The Doctor looked up and, although she couldn't quite make out the expression on his face, the glee in his voice as he said her name told her that he was clearly pleased to see her. "Thank God, you came home. I don't know what I would've done had you been any longer."

"Probably have broken the laptop, I suspect." She said to him. "What are you doing anyway?"

He shifted uncomfortably and Rose went up to stand by him, but she never sat down.

The Doctor sighed before replying. "I wanted to find something for us to do together to make it up to you for being a complete idiot." He told her.

"Make it up to me? Make what up?" Rose asked, she was genuinely confused. She sat down next to him, trying to look at what he was doing on the screen, but the Doctor just lowered it.

"Rose, look, things haven't been easy for me lately but I wanted to apologise for the way I've been around you. I've been a pretty bad friend and I'm sorry if you felt that I was pushing you away." He told her, looking right at her, trying to get her to understand how sorry he was.

Rose didn't quite know what to say to that. Yes, she had felt a little pushed away, but she hadn't thought he'd realised what he was doing and so she hadn't expected this in any way.

"So, I wanted to take you out – over New Year – to apologise and to remind you that I do still care and that you can talk to me about anything, whatever it is."

"Doctor, that would be wonderful and I do know that I can talk to you about anything; I know you'll listen." Rose replied, honoured that he wanted to do something like this for her.

"Then why are you keeping stuff from me?"

"What?"

"I know you Rose and I know when you're hiding something. Whatever it is, you can tell me." The Doctor told her and suddenly Rose realised where this had all come from. He knew she was up to something, but he didn't know what. She had known, right from the moment she had suggested that the keep the Doctor uninformed about the Dimension Cannon that he would figure out something was going on eventually. Shit, now what did she do? She couldn't tell him what she was doing; she so desperately wanted to keep it a surprise from him, to show her that she really could do something without him. But at the same time, she knew she couldn't keep lying to him; he knew something was up and, like he had said, he did know her and he always knew when she was hiding something. Rose couldn't hide a cold from this man and they both knew it.

"It's not important and not something you need to worry about." Rose told her, knowing that this was the oldest trick in the book and most certainly would not work on the Doctor. But hey, she had to try something – at least it would give her more time to think of an answer that would actually work on him (ha! That'll be the day).

"Rose, don't give me that. What happened to: 'I know I can tell you anything'?" The Doctor asked her and Rose knew she was going to have to work hard to get herself out of this one.

"Doctor, please, this I really can't tell you. You just have to trust me. Please, just this one time."

"Rose Tyler, when have I ever not had trust in you?" The Doctor asked, trying to hide the fact that it hurt to know Rose maybe didn't think the Doctor trusted her as much as he did. Now wasn't the time to start talking about that, however.

"Just please, Doctor." Rose pleaded. "I promise, you'll find out soon enough…just…not right now."

The Doctor knew that there was no point in arguing with her. At least it seemed as though she would eventually tell him what was going on, but it was the reasons as to why she couldn't tell him now that worried him. What was so big that he had to be the very last person to know what it was? Blimey, this was going to drive him mad!

"Alright, as long as you keep you that promise and tell me what it is eventually."

"I promise. And when you know, you'll realise why I didn't want to tell you to begin with." They looked at each other for a moment before Rose grabbed the screen of the laptop and pulled it up. "Right, so, what was it you wanted to do over New Year?"

…

As it happens, the Doctor decided to take Rose out into London to see the fireworks for New Year. Rose was more than happy; she had never gotten the chance to see them up close before and, even though, they wouldn't be able to get down near the Thames, the Doctor said that hotel he had booked them in had a balcony overlooking that part of the city and that they would get a much better view from there anyway. Rose didn't care, she was just happy that she was getting chance to spend time with the Doctor once again and, unlike the other times they had been out since they arrived here, this had been his idea. Rose didn't want to spend the rest of her time comparing the smallest things to how they used to be before Torchwood, but she allowed herself to do just that this one time. Maybe this was finally a turning point.

But first they had to get through the party at the mansion and to say that the Doctor was less than excited was the understatement of the year.

He had been roped in to help with decorations at long last and he wasn't happy about it. He had done enough of this at Christmas and, considering the Christmas decorations were still sitting proudly around the building, the Doctor didn't understand the need for any more. He was convinced that Jackie was doing this to him on purpose and, because she was the one who was helping him do it while Pete, Rose and Mickey went shopping, he began to understand why.

"So, you taking Rose out to see the New Year in then?" Jackie asked as she gave the Doctor the other end of some long, shiny thing that the Doctor just looked at in confusion. "To go over the curtain poles." She told him, answering the question he never asked.

The Doctor looked up at the curtain pole they were standing under, purposely noticing the other long, shiny thing that was already up there.

"I wanted a change, alright?" Jackie told him, again answering what he never asked. How did she do that?

Nodding in the way that he did when he still didn't understand the logic of why they needed a new one when the old one was perfectly adequate, but not wanting to say anything in case he got an explanation he didn't need nor particularly want, the Doctor just did as Jackie instructed.

"Anyway, as I was saying," Jackie began again. "You're taking Rose out?"

"Yes," the Doctor replied. Jackie already knew this, why was she bothering to ask him about something she already knew.

"Are you going to tell her?"

"Tell her what?" The Doctor asked.

Jackie just looked at him as if it was supposed to be the most obvious thing in all the known universe (and, actually, maybe the unknown universe, too). God, for someone who kept banging on about how clever he was, he wasn't half dim sometimes.

"What do you think?" Jackie asked, which only confused the Doctor even further.

"Jackie, honestly, what am I supposed to be telling her? If you mean that I should tell her that I'm sorry, then I already know that and haven't actually stopped saying it since she got home. This whole trip is to tell her that I'm sorry."

"I know that you plum! I meant are you going to tell her how you feel? It's about time you did."

 _Ah._

The Doctor stuttered, like he always did when he was uncomfortable and didn't know what to say. Jackie knew Rose found it cute (she had told her) but to Jackie, it was just frustrating right now.

"You can't take her away and not tell her. You're going to see the fireworks to welcome the New Year in – you don't get much more romantic than that."

"Well, there's Paris in 1808…" The Doctor said.

"Oh, you know what I meant. Don't try and dodge the subject."

"Jackie, I can't tell her." The Doctor told her, becoming serious.

"Why?"

"It's complicated."

"It really isn't."

The Doctor sighed and sat down on the chair beside him. "Jackie it's not that I don't want to tell Rose how I feel, because I do, I really do. But I _can't_." He looked at her, willing for her to understand, but she knew she wouldn't.

"Why not?" Jackie said, pulling up a chair next to him.

"Because of who I am."

"I don't understand."

"I'm not human, Jackie."

"I know that," Jackie told him. "And so does, Rose. And, although I find the whole thing slightly weird, it doesn't bother her in the slightest, so why should it bother you?"

"It's not that. I don't care that she's human and I'm not, it's got nothing to do with that, it's to do with what being two different species means in the long run."

"Doctor, you're really not making any sense."

The Doctor sighed, he was just going to have to come out and say it. "I don't age – or I do, but slowly – and I can regenerate. I'll live for hundreds – maybe thousands more years, depending on how quickly I go through regenerations – but the point is, Rose won't. Rose will age; she won't live as long as I will and, one day, I will lose her. And it'll be normal and, hopefully, years from now, but I'll still lose her and I'll have to carry on – alone." The Doctor sighed again and Jackie could see the faintest showing of tears in his eyes, but decided to let him continue. "So how can I tell her how I feel when it'll just cause more heartache in the end because I let her get too close?"

"It'll be worse if you don't tell her." Jackie said gently and the Doctor looked at her. "If you don't tell her, then when you do lose her, you'll forever regret the days you never had, but could've and you won't be able to change that. That chance of having those years, however fleeting they are to you, will have disappeared and you'll be left with memories full of regrets, not memories full of love and happiness – all things that you deserve. I know how it hurts to lose someone you love and I know that it will hurt when you have to carry on on your own, but you can't let the future get in the way of the present. Live in the moment and do what's right now."

The Doctor looked at her, unsure about what to say. No one had ever put it to him like that before and he had never chosen to think about how he would regret his own decision. He didn't like to admit it, but Jackie was right, how had he not seen this? It didn't take away that it was going to hurt like hell when Rose eventually left him, but yes, it probably would hurt more if he lived on with regrets.

"Jackie Tyler, when did you get so wise?" He joked, but Jackie could see that she had really gotten through to him.

"Doctor, can I ask you something?"

"Sure,"

"Is it biologically possible for you and Rose to have children?"

The Doctor looked at Jackie with wide eyes. He was sure that, if he had taken a sip of water from a glass at that point, said water would now be over the floor. Of all the questions to ask and she had to ask that!

"W…what?" The Doctor asked, hoping that he had heard wrong. He couldn't help but feel embarrassed – although the feeling was completely illogical.

"I know it seems an odd question to ask, but I promise there is a point to it. And I'm not asking you because I'm desperate for grandchildren – although that would be nice – I'm asking for your sake. So, can you?"

"Erm…yeah, hypothetically speaking it should be possible."

"And would the child be half and half or would one set of genes take precedence over the other?"

"Um…mine would take precedence. So the child would be about three-quarters to a quarter." He could feel himself getting redder and redder. This certainly was not a conversation he was expecting to be having with Jackie, not when they had only just gotten him to think slightly more clearly on the fact that his reasoning for not telling Rose his feelings was clearly ill-thought.

"So, roughly, how long would the child live?"

"I don't know…they wouldn't be able to regenerate, not without having been…erm…conceived while in the vortex, unless they were to look into the vortex – which I do not recommend, by the way – but the child would live longer than the average human. Probably around about the length of time one regeneration would last for, so up to about a thousand years, but first…bodies, I guess…don't tend to last as long as post regeneration ones, but it often always depends on the person…" he trailed off awkwardly. "Why are you asking me this?"

"Because, if you do tell Rose how you feel and, I don't know, five or ten years down the line, you have children, if they live longer than the average human and possibly for hundreds of years, then you'll always have someone to keep you company and you'll always have something to keep you here. Even when we're all dead and buried."

The Doctor looked down and thought this over. Jackie had a point and a good one at that. He'd never thought about it like that before; had never entertained the possibility of he and Rose ever having children.

"What if Rose doesn't want that though?" The Doctor asked.

"I don't think you need to bother with that question; trust me. I know how my daughter feels about you and I always have. I don't think you have anything to worry about, providing you actually tell her how you feel. You have a perfect opportunity coming up and I don't want you to waste it. It'll be hard and you'll probably feel like you're messing everything up, but believe me, when it comes to worry about how Rose feels in return – you needn't bother." Jackie then sat up, giving the Doctor's shoulder a squeeze before disappearing into one of the other rooms, leaving the Doctor to think over everything they had just said, the decorations all-but forgotten.


	7. SEVEN

**_Okay, so this chapter is_ long. _Believe me, I had no intention of it being this long, it just happened that way. It's also basically pure fluff, but considering the second half of the story, I figured it was fine to have one chapter dedicated to pure 10/Rose goodness. I feel this chapter is when you'll start to see where I'm going with this story. I hope you enjoy it; it wasn't easy to write._**

 ** _With it being Christmas break, I'll try my best to get an update to you soon. I'm working quite a bit and have a couple of essays to edit and one to write over the break so we will see what happens. Hopefully, I'll see you soon!_**

* * *

New Year's Eve couldn't come fast enough if the Doctor was honest with himself. Not only had he really not wanted to get involved with Jackie and Pete's party in any way, he also didn't really fancy the idea of Jackie 'showing him off' to all her friends that she had only just met himself.

"And this is my daughter's man," she had told numerous middle aged women who looked at him by way of judgement. One woman even said "ooh, he's a bit thin, isn't he?" The cheek of the woman! There was nothing wrong with his weight whatsoever.

"Jackie, can you please leave me alone for five minutes?" He had pleaded nearly every ten minutes he was there. He kept looking over at Rose who was with Mickey and his new girlfriend and the Doctor had to swallow down the rush of jealousy he felt every time he looked in their direction. He told himself to stop it; to get a grip; Rose wasn't Mickey's anymore, he knew that – had known for a long time – and Mickey looked happy with his new girlfriend anyway. So why did the feeling keep arising?

 _Because she's not with you._ The little voice in the back of his head told him with a rather familiar accent that he hadn't heard for quite a while. He often heard his previous regenerations talking to him in his head, telling him what they would do in a particular situation. He hadn't been oblivious to the fact that it was always this particular voice that talked to him whenever Rose was involved somehow.

He sighed, knowing he was right and once again tried to steer clear of Jackie who was still showing him off to her friends.

If he didn't know any better, he would have thought that Jackie was actually glad he was here.

But this was the same woman who had slapped him the second time they had met.

He had thought he had removed the memory of their first meeting the moment it was over, but it still plagued him from time to time.

"Rose, help me, your mother is dragging me around like I'm her puppy." The Doctor told her, fear in his voice, as he finally managed to make his way over to where she stood.

"Um, OK? Why?" Rose asked, not sure what to say to the Doctor's sudden revelation.

"I have no idea. She keeps showing me off to her new friends."

Rose couldn't help it, she just laughed.

"Oi! It's not funny, I'm not at this party to been shown off. In fact, I don't particularly want to be here in the first place."

Rose continued to giggle before turning to look at him. "Don't worry, I don't want to be here much either, but we promised mum and dad so we're stuck here."

The Doctor just made a noise that told Rose he wasn't happy with their agreement.

"Anyway, sorry," Rose said looking back towards Mickey and Marcia who were watching the Doctor and Rose, one with amusement on his face, the other with confusion written on hers. "Marcia, this is the Doctor. Believe me when I say that you get to ignore the majority of what he says half the time."

"Oi!"

At that, Marcia gave a little giggle and took the Doctor's hand in her own as a way of greeting. "Nice to meet you, Doctor. I have to say, it's a funny name you've got there."

"Yeah, well, my parents clearly decided they didn't like me very early on apparently." The Doctor joked, not wanting to get into an explanation of his name just now. He figured that was likely to come later. He had already accepted the fact that there were some people they were just going to have to tell about who he really was and where he had come from. The people at Torchwood (those unlike Rose, Mickey, Pete and Jake who already knew of course) would have to be told eventually if the Doctor was going to work their full time and, by the looks of how happy both Mickey and Marcia seemed to be, it was inevitable that Marcia would have to be told eventually too. For now though, that information was being kept at a close. For no more reason that the Doctor couldn't actually be bothered to tell anyone and that he had other, more pressing things, on his mind. Like, for example, New Year with Rose.

"Well, it suits you somehow."

"Thanks…I think." He replied awkwardly.

"Anyway, nice to meet you." Marcia said, smiling before she and Mickey left to go and enjoy the party.

"And you," the Doctor said just a little moment too late. Rose just giggled.

"What?" He asked.

"You know, for someone who can walk into any room and act like they own the place, you can't half be awkward sometimes."

"What's that supposed to mean?" The Doctor asked, but Rose just shook her head and took hold of the Doctor's hand, dragging him away from their position. If they were going to have to be stuck at this party for a few more hours the least they could do was try and enjoy themselves to pass the time.

…

Thankfully, New Year came around eventually and the Doctor was up early, knocking on Rose's door, telling her to start packing for the day and a bit they were there. He told her he had booked them a room and that they were to be there at twelve.

The singular usage of the word 'room' was not lost on Rose, however, and she wondered if the Doctor had realised his verbal mistake. Best not to dwell on it, however. She was looking forward to this; it was nice to be able to go out with the Doctor in a similar way to how they used to before. No, they weren't on some planet forty-thousand light years away from the Earth, but it wasn't the first time the Doctor had taken her somewhere nice to see something spectacular. They had been on many 'dates' in their travels together and Rose was determined to enjoy this one as much as she had enjoyed the others. The only difference this time was that they wouldn't be taking the TARDIS to their destination. Nope, the Doctor had mentioned something about there being a taxi taking them to the hotel and that it would be arriving about eleven.

Packed and ready to go, Rose was waiting by the door saying goodbye to Jackie and telling her that, yes, she would take pictures of the fireworks and, yes, she had remembered to pack her camera and, yes, she had got enough clothes and, yes… _for goodness sake mum I'm not a child anymore!_

Thankfully, the Doctor turned up not long later. He had all of one small rucksack over his shoulder and Rose couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.

"Got bored so I used the sonic to make it bigger on the inside." The Doctor told her, answering her unasked question.

Rose nodded as way of answering. _Of course he did_ she thought as the two of them said one last goodbye to Jackie and made their way of the door.

As the Doctor shut the door behind them, his eyes met Jackie's to see that she was giving him a look that basically told him to not fuck up and to not back out of the opportunity he had.

In reply, he simply nodded nervously back. Boy was there a lot riding on this.

…

"Thank you for this." Rose said as she and the Doctor left the taxi and walked the short distance to the entrance of the hotel.

"Rose, there's no need to thank me." The Doctor told her as he opened the door for her. "You deserved it. You've had to put up with me moping for the last few months so I thought it was about time I did something for you."

"You didn't have to though." Rose said. "You've already done more than enough as it is. You gave up everything you ever had – you're entire life – I don't know why you did it, but you did and I guess I'm just glad that we've still got each other."

The Doctor didn't know what to say to that without revealing too much so he simply smiled warmly in Rose's direction, who then smiled back at him with equal warmth. They were too lost in the moment to realise that they had made it up to the check-in desk.

"Oh hello," the Doctor said brightly when he came back to reality and noticed the young woman behind the desk.

"Hello sir – have you booked a room?"

"Yes, I booked the other day. Should be under 'Dr. John Smith'" The Doctor told her and the woman nodded, typing the name into the computer in front of her.

"Dr.?" Rose whispered with her brow raised. "Do you have to specify your title everywhere you go?" She asked, her voiced amused.

"It asked for a title, so I gave it one." The Doctor responded. "Who am I to argue with the booking system?"

"Usually the first in line." Rose said, tongue-in-teeth smile causing the Doctor to be momentarily distracted. He was suddenly reminded of the last time she had uttered that exact phrase. He had been a different man back then, but the way he felt about the girl beside him had changed not at all; he was unable to do anything else other than smile at her.

"Here we are, Sir. Room 63. Hope you enjoy your stay. The fireworks are supposed to be good this year." The woman told him as she passed over the key.

"So I've heard. Thank you." The Doctor replied, taking the key from her and giving the woman a quick smile before taking hold of Rose's hand and leading her towards the room.

…

"Here we are." The Doctor announced as they reached the room. "And the key works, thank goodness for that." He said as the door opened first time.

"Doctor, I don't mean to point out the obvious, but you've only booked the one room."

"Yes," The Doctor said, not seeming to understand what it was Rose was getting at. "It's not like we've never shared a room before, you know."

"I know that. I just thought…well…"

"That I'd book us separate rooms so we never get to spend any time together?" The Doctor asked, raising his eyebrow.

"Yes! I mean…no…not that last bit…I dunno…"

The Doctor couldn't help but giggle slightly.

"Rose, I want to spend as much time with you as possible. This is supposed to be me saying sorry for being a complete idiot lately and not spending time with you, remember?"

"You've already apologised enough, though."

"I know, but I wanted to do it right."

"Thank you."

"No worries. Now, come on you, we can't stand out here all day."

Rose followed the Doctor through the door and into the room. She couldn't help but gasp at what greeted her.

The room was well-decorated and modern. White and purple was the colour-scheme that they had gone for and there was a purple flower image covering the wall that the bed rested on.

The one double bed.

One.

Singular.

 _Right…_

"Doctor?" Rose asked. "Are you sure we're in the right room?"

"Yes Rose, I'm sure."

"There are two of remember. Two of us; one bed."

"Your point? It's not like we've never shared before and, besides, I won't lie, this was cheaper." The Doctor told her as he threw his rucksack on the floor and jumped on the bed, laying down with his hands behind his head.

He had a point. Neither of them had quite got to grips with the amount that they were paid by Torchwood and often forgot that they had the money to buy the dearer things in life, so it was understandable that the Doctor had picked something he thought would be affordable. Either that or he was using it as some form of excuse.

And, yeah, they had shared a bed before. It wasn't a completely alien thing to either of them.

But Rose couldn't help but notice that the Doctor seemed oddly…okay with this. A little too okay maybe.

After all, the last time they had shared was the night they arrived in this world. It was understandable that the Doctor had wanted company; had admitted to it, even.

But this? Nah, this was something else. This seemed almost…planned?

Surely he wasn't…?

He couldn't be? Could he?

Was this…?

Were they...?

"Rose, you okay?"

She was brought out of her thoughts by the sound of the Doctor's voice coming from where he lay on the bed. It was then that she realised she hadn't yet moved and was still standing near the door, holding her bags.

"Hmm? What?" She asked as she came back to reality.

"I asked if you were okay; you've gone quiet all of a sudden." The Doctor said, sitting up on the bed and looking at her in concern. "Is something the matter?"

 _No. There is nothing the matter. Everything is perfectly fine. More than that. I mean..._

"No, I'm fine. Just had a moment, I suppose." She replied eventually, cutting herself off from the thoughts that crowded her head. Most of them concerning the Doctor and a particular usage of the bed he was still sitting on.

"Okay, if you're sure." He said, though he didn't seem entirely convinced.

Rose nodded and moved from where she stood and put her bags next to where the Doctor had thrown his, and went over to sit on the other side of the bed. She decided that she would leave that matter alone for now. After all, it wasn't really going to cause much of a problem until it came for them to actually sleep in it. And with it being New Year's Eve, she didn't expect that they would be getting to bed very early anyway so, by that time, she might even be too tired to care.

"So what's the plan for today, then?" She asked in an attempt to take her mind off of its previous topic.

"Well," the Doctor said in true Doctor-ish fashion, making Rose smile. He turned to look at her. "That would be telling."

…

As it happens, the Doctor had decided that he would treat Rose and allow her to roam around London, dragging him along in all the shops she wanted to go into. He didn't complain – not once; he was just happy to see Rose smiling like everything was alright with the world once more. He didn't care what it took him to get her to feel this way. It was cliché and awfully domestic but, if she was happy then so was he.

As they walked down Oxford Street together, Rose couldn't help but look up at the zeppelin-covered sky. She couldn't help but think to herself that she might never get used to seeing them up there all the time; however, she couldn't help but smile when she noticed a few of them had Christmas images underside.

"They like their Christmas decorations in this world." Rose said, turning away from the zeppelins and looking around the street. Her own Oxford Street wasn't exactly under-decorated in anyway, but this was something new. There were lights on every building – some even fully lit from roof to ground, leaving no sight of brick to be seen. Lights swung proudly above the paths and Rose noticed, with fondness, that they were already switched on despite it still being broad daylight.

 _I bet this place is magical in the dark._ She thought to herself.

"I wouldn't say there's any more lights and decorations here than there is back on our world." The Doctor told her.

"Oh I dunno, feels like there's more." Rose said. She chose to ignore the fact that the Doctor had said 'our world' rather than 'her world'. Earth wasn't his planet and he had more times than not pointed that out: when did he start to consider the Earth as _his world,_ too?

"Especially when you include the decorations on the zeppelins." Rose said, getting the Doctor to look up at what she had noticed not long ago. "Hey," she continued. "Do they move the zeppelins or something when the fireworks start?" She asked. "We've been here before but last time I never noticed any designated zeppelin parking."

"Well, we did spend most of our time running away from Cybermen trying to stay alive." The Doctor pointed out. "But yes, they move them, I would think. I did notice something on the way here which looked like 'zeppelin parking only'. Don't worry, I doubt they'll obstruct the view of the fireworks. I was told when I booked the room that the view was good."

"Not feeling like going down to the Thames to watch it outside then?" Rose asked.

"Nah, too cold. Plus, it's much nicer to be able to spend the time with you rather than lots of other people and you." He said, looking down at her with a look in his eye that made Rose's heart skip a beat or two.

"You're a big softy, you know that, right?" She told him with a smile before standing on her toes and giving the Time Lord a peck on the cheek. She giggled when she noticed he had started blushing ever-so-slightly.

…

A few hours later, Rose was waiting in one of the many cafés with a mug of steaming hot chocolate and a number of bags surrounding her feet. She sat on her own by the window waiting for the Doctor to return from wherever it was he had gone. He hadn't said where he was going, only that he would meet her in this café in no more than half an hour. She expected that he had gone off to get parts for something he was working on at Torchwood; he had been trying to tell her about what he was doing, but the science babble had gone straight over her head and she found that she was no longer listening to any of the words he was telling her. It also made her feel even more guilty for not telling him about her own project. They had already had that conversation and she was glad that he hadn't brought it up again.

Although, maybe talking to her about what he was doing was his subtle way of getting her to tell him.

She wouldn't let on though. No, it had to be a surprise.

She just hoped that it wasn't too much longer before she could tell him.

…

She had apparently zoned out of the reality around her as she was started by the sound of the door opening and the Doctor coming to sit next to her.

"Sorry didn't mean to make you jump. I did try waving through the window."

"Sorry, I zoned out for a while I guess."

"You okay?" The Doctor asked, noticing that she seemed a little down all of a sudden.

"I'm fine, honestly. Guess I'm just exhausted after all that walking around and shopping." She said with a smile.

"Okay if you're sure." The Doctor said, letting the subject drop. "Shall we make a move if you're all done here?"

"You not getting anything?" She asked.

"Nah, I'm alright. I can make myself some tea when we get back to the hotel. I need to double check I've booked our table for tonight correctly; be a bit embarrassing if we turn up and I haven't booked properly." The Doctor then stood up, grabbing the bags from where they sat by Rose's feet and waited as Rose made sure she had everything.

"We going out for dinner?" She asked.

"Why of course we are! Rose Tyler, what do you take me for, eh? I take you out to a wonderful hotel to see the fireworks on New Year's Eve and you don't expect me to take you out for a meal? Believe me, I've known you long enough now to know what you'll like on a date." He said, smiling at her.

Date. He actually admitted to this being a date. Without hesitation. Date. A date. Official? This wasn't their usual 'I'll-take-you-to-the-end-of-the-earth-and-then-let's-go-get-chips' kind of date; this was proper. Romantic and thought out.

Rose couldn't help but feel confused.

And maybe a tad hopeful.

"Okay, so where are we going?" Rose asked.

"Now that, my dearest Rose, would be telling."

Rose couldn't help it when her body reacted to him calling her that. And she certainly couldn't help it when he looked right at her in a way that one could've interpreted as suggestive.

 _Oh boy._ Rose thought as she followed the Doctor out of the café, her hand firmly held in his. _I'm not sure how much more of this I can take before I do something I might regret._

…

Making it through dinner was the hardest part of the evening so far. The Doctor had taken her to the fanciest restaurant he could find (and hadn't messed up their booking) and had booked a table right at the back of the building, away from where the majority of the diners had been sat. It was a secluded and private spot and Rose couldn't help but wonder if it been all the Doctor's doing or that it was just some kind of coincidence that they had ended up in this particular spot.

She was thankful, though. The Doctor had really gone all-out for her and she couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by it all in the best way possible. It showed her that he still cared about her in the way he had before and that the distance that had been put between them had meant nothing at all. He still wanted to be around her and that was the most important thing.

But there was something else nagging at the back of Rose's mind as they sat together and ate their meal.

During the moments that they nothing to each other, Rose couldn't help but let her mind wander back to the events of the day, trying to work out what it was that was constantly trying to make itself known in the back of her mind.

She thought about all the things that had happened during the day; all the things that had caught her somewhat off guard; things like: finding out that, not only were they sharing a room, but also sharing a bed tonight; him letting her do whatever it was that she wanted to do and not complaining once; the way he had looked at her; the way he had said her name earlier and had called her 'dearest'; the way he had called this a 'date' as if it were the most normal thing in the world and that he was comfortable with the idea; and finally, going all-out on an evening meal in one of the most romantic places Rose could have thought possible.

Surely this couldn't all be one massive coincidence? Had it been any man other than the Doctor, Rose would have seriously considered the possibility that he was trying to tell her something. But, because it was the Doctor, Rose couldn't tell. This wasn't his style; he didn't do domestic. Hell, he had been struggling with the idea constantly since they had arrived. She knew what it took him to accept the fact that they were stuck in what she would consider a 'normal life': and yet, here he was, being as domestic as it was possible to be and Rose had no idea how to take it. She knew how she _wanted_ to take it and had been hoping that something might happen one day. But the timing was off, there couldn't be anything behind it, especially since they had found themselves drifting from one another a lot recently. Maybe this was just his way of showing her that he hadn't meant to make her feel unwanted and it really was all just one big coincidence.

Regardless of what it was, Rose was going to enjoy it. She could pretend it was something more than an apology for a few more hours.

…

With only an hour left to go before the fireworks began, the Doctor sat outside on the balcony overlooking the River, having a silent argument with himself.

Rose was inside, sat on the bed, engrossed in a book that she had brought with her. They had come back from dinner a few hours ago feeling giddy and happy after a couple of glasses of expensive wine. She had said that she had wanted to relax for a few hours before watching the fireworks which worked perfectly fine for the Doctor who needed to have a good talking to himself anyway.

He had been replaying what Jackie had told him when he had said he had booked this trip and what she had said before they had left. He knew she was expecting him to have said something to Rose about how he felt when they got back, but he still couldn't bring himself to agree wholeheartedly that she was right about what she had said to him the other day.

He wanted to tell her – God, he wanted to more than anything – but his own reasoning behind not doing so still plagued his thoughts. Surely Jackie was wrong? Surely it would be best not to tell Rose when he knew it would hurt like absolute hell when she left? But then came what Jackie had told him about regrets. Surely he would regret it more if he never told her? All those days he could have had with Rose in the way he knew they both wanted and not one of them lived because he was too scared to tell her how he felt. It would hurt either way, but which one would leave him being able to move on from the pain the fasted? The looking back at happy memories that he no longer could live, or looking back at the time he had wasted, regretting every chance he could have told her but never did?

When put like that, the answer was obvious, but his brain still tried to fight against it.

Forty-five minutes went by and Rose had begun to worry about why the Doctor had been outside for as long as he had. She knew he didn't feel the cold in the same way she did, but he had been sat out there for a good couple of hours now in the same spot. Super biology or not, there was no chance that he wasn't feeling it now.

She put down her book and grabbed a blanket from the bed before putting on her coat and making her way outside.

As she opened the doors to the balcony she looked down at the watch on her wrist. Fifteen minutes left it was telling her; fifteen minutes until the start of a new year. She wondered if the year that was about to come was the year in which she might be able to finish the Dimension Cannon and tell the Doctor that she had been able to make a way of getting them home and back to where the TARDIS was waiting for them. That was all she wanted from the next year.

He didn't seem to notice her when she stepped out into the cold, night air. It was only when she draped the blanket around the Doctor's shoulders that he finally took notice of her standing behind him and turn around to look at her.

"Thought you might be cold; you've been out here a while." She told him, pulling up a chair and sitting beside him.

"Thanks," the Doctor replied.

"You alright?" She asked, noticing that his mood had shifted from earlier.

"Yeah," he said with a small smile and Rose knew there was something behind it that suggested otherwise. Looking into his eyes told her that he was having some form of inner conflict, but she couldn't tell what it was that was making him feel this way.

Deciding not to dwell on it any more, Rose looked out towards where she knew the fireworks would be going off any time soon. The London Eye sitting proudly by the river waiting to be lit up.

"I see they moved the zeppelins in the end, then." Rose noticed.

"Yep, told you they would." The Doctor said, but none of his usual teasing was there.

"Doctor, what's wrong?" Rose asked. "Something's bothering you." She moved the chair closer to try and get a closer look at the man who was causing her concern. He turned to look at her but didn't say anything. "You thinking about the TARDIS again?" She asked gently knowing it was a subject the Doctor tended to avoid if he could.

But his answer surprised her.

"No,"

"Then what's the matter? You seemed happy earlier."

"And I still am. I'm just…nervous."

"'Bout what?"

The Doctor gave a small laugh and gave a tight smile.

"What?"

"Nothing," he said. "What's the time?"

Rose looked at her watch. "Nearly ten to."

The Doctor nodded. "I've got ten minutes then, if I want to do this right."

Rose gave him a look of confusion but the Doctor didn't bother to elaborate any further; instead putting his hand into his blazer pocket and pulling out a long and narrow, blue box.

 _TARDIS blue._ Rose couldn't help but think.

"Doctor…what…?" Rose started to ask but found she had no words; she hadn't a clue what he was about to do. She felt both nervous and hopeful and wasn't sure which emotion was winning out.

"Rose, listen to me, because everything I'm about to say to you is more terrifying to me than facing an empire of Daleks." The Doctor said. "But first, I want you to open this." He passed her the box to which she took with confusion. "Go on then," he gave her a small smile trying to calm her nerves as well as his own.

Rose looked from the Doctor to the box and back up again. He gave her a nod of encouragement and Rose slowly took the lid of the box off, revealing what the Doctor had put inside for her.

The only thing she could do when she saw what it was inside was gasp.

"Doctor…" She had no idea what to say to him as she took out the object in the box. A screwdriver. A sonic screwdriver. Her own sonic screwdriver.

"It's about time you had one." The Doctor said smiling at her.

"When did you do this?"

"I started working on it before Canary Wharf but never managed to finish it because we were always getting distracted. I finished it a few days ago." He explained.

"Thank you," she said with sincerity.

"That's not all." He said. "Look on the side at the engraving."

Rose did as she was told and noticed the familiar symbols that was the Doctor's language on the side of the slender tube.

"What does it say?" She asked.

"Your name…and mine."

"Yours?" The Doctor nodded.

"My real name."

Rose looked at him with wonder. He had never told her his name and, as far as she was aware, no one knew. It was a secret he kept – even from himself it seemed at times.

"Will you ever tell me what it is?" She asked, knowing that she was asking something from him that she might never get. And she was okay with that.

"One day," the Doctor told her. "There's only one time I ever could though."

"What do you…?"

The Doctor took the box from her hands, putting it on the floor and taking her hands in his.

"Rose, I need you to listen to me because I have to tell you something; something I never thought I would ever tell you." The Doctor took in a long breath before speaking again. "Back at Canary Wharf I had a choice. The choice being to stay in our universe and continue travelling alone or to leave that all behind and come here. I only had a second to decide and as I watched you fall towards the void and Pete coming to save you, I knew that I didn't want to be without you. I was faced with the prospect of never being able to see you ever again and I didn't want to imagine what that would do to me. You saved me from myself after the Time War and in doing so you hold a part of me that I can't live without. So I pressed the button."

Rose looked at him in shock. It was one thing to wonder the reasons to why he had decided to come, but a completely different thing altogether to actually hear him say it. She almost didn't believe him and, had it not been from the intense look in his eyes and he looked at her, she might have said that he was making it up. But she knew he wasn't.

"You chose to give up everything you had for me?"

"I didn't give up everything, Rose."

"But the TARDIS…"

"I know," the Doctor said. "But I didn't want to lose you. I wasn't ready and I…" he trailed off, unable to say what he wanted to but looking at Rose as if willing her to understand what he was trying to say. He then stood up, pulling her up, too, with his hands still firmly in hers. "I don't give just anyone a sonic screwdriver and I don't write my name on everything I hand out. I don't do domestics because the thought of staying still terrifies me. I've been travelling for so long now that I've forgotten what it's like to live a life on the slow path, but I am willing to try, for however long we have together. Because, as a wise person said to me the other day, if I don't tell you how I feel, I'll regret it for the rest of my life." The Doctor let go of one of Rose's hands and brushed his fingers down the side of her face, pushing a strand of Rose's hair behind her ear. "So this is me, doing just that; telling you how I feel, because I don't want to wake up one day with you not there and regret every day that I could've told you. I want to wake up with happy memories, full of love and joy, not sorrow and regret. So if you'll let me, I want to do just that."

Rose couldn't say anything to that, her eyes were full of moisture as she tried not to cry listening to the Doctor open up to her in a way that she never thought she would hear.

When words failed her, she did the only thing she could and nod, a watery smile on her face.

It was all the Doctor needed from her to know that she felt the same and the lowered his head, his face inches away from hers. He held back for a moment, giving Rose the chance to pull away if she wanted. When she didn't move, he covered her lips with his own in a kiss that was nothing like either of them had experiences before. It was gentle and loving and it quickly deepened, the Doctor's tongue grazing Rose's lips, begging for entrance that he was quickly granted.

They were so lost in the moment that both of them jumped, startled when the heard the first firework go off, and broke apart.

The sky was soon lit up with all kinds of colours as the fireworks continued. The Doctor kept a hold of Rose, neither of them looking out at the landscape surrounding them, both too occupied by looking at each other with smiles on their faces.

"You have some impeccable timing, you know that, right?" Rose said with a small laugh.

"One of the perks of being a Time Lord." He said with a cheeky smile before leaning down and stealing another kiss from Rose's lips, her arms immediately making their way round the Doctor's neck as the kiss deepened.

"Thank you," Rose said breathlessly as the Doctor pulled away and started to kiss at Rose's neck.

"What for?" The Doctor asked between kisses.

"For bringing me here. For making this a New Year to remember. For being you." Rose said.

The Doctor stopped kissing her for a moment and looked at her. "You have nothing thank me for, Rose. If anything, I should be thanking you. You've done more for me then I sometimes realise and I will forever be thankful for all those times you saved me."

Rose smiled and brought the Doctor into a tight hug, to which he gladly returned.

Ahead of them, the fireworks continued, marking the start of the New Year.

A New Year which both the Doctor and Rose hoped would be the start of a brand new life. A life which was theirs; a life which they could live in peace; a life which, for the first time in his many years, the Doctor found he wasn't too afraid of.

But there was an impending darkness looming in the air around them.

A darkness that threatened the whole of reality.

It was just going to take a little longer for them to realise.


	8. EIGHT

_**A/N: Hope you all had a good Christmas (I was actually a little unwell annoyingly, so I didn't have a great one), here's chapter eight!**_

 _ **So this is where the plot really starts to kick in and I can get on track with the plot that I wrote for this part of the story back in June. I also want to point out that this genre isn't one which I am used to writing and so have felt rather out of my comfort zone while writing this, but I had fun with it and hope that it's turned out alright.**_

 _ **I'm not entirely sure, when I'll be able to get the next one written as I have to start an essay which I due on the 5th of January and some others to edit for the 9th and something else for the 11th (help!), but after I should be free (hopefully).**_

* * *

It had been subtle at first. Occasionally, the odd star would seem to disappear from view, though it was only those who spent their time looking up at the stars who seemed to notice first. They tried to tell the officials; tried to tell them that there was something was happening, but the officials refused to believe them; kept telling them that it was nothing. There were no threats to be dealt with. If there were then Torchwood would already be working on it.

People knew what Torchwood was, of course, the People's Republic hadn't taken over for nothing. But it was still a secret amongst the public as to what it was that Torchwood really did now that the regime had changed. Some wanted to know why it had gone back such secrecy while others simply didn't care and continued to get on with their lives.

Either way, whichever person you were, there was no way to get in contact with Torchwood as no one knew who worked for them anymore.

Therefore, no astronomer who ignored the officials were able to find out if Torchwood really knew what was going on.

That, as one would expect, was when the conspiracies started to occur.

They started off as the usual internet blogs about little green men coming to the Earth that only a select few would really believe. But as more and more stars started coming to 'the end of their lives' as the officials had tried to tell them, the conspiracies started to become more in depth and more worthy of attention. Some suggested that there was danger lurking somewhere in the universe and that it might not just be their planet that was at risk.

With more proof arising that there was something more to this 'stars dying' rubbish that the government had put out trying to get people to steer clear of the conspiracies, people started to panic.

It was then that the government really started to listen to the astronomers.

Thankfully, however, Torchwood had already noticed that something was going on before the government and were attempting to get to the bottom of it.

From the moment people had started to notice the stars disappearing and the mass panic of the people, three years had passed.

…

Sitting at his desk fiddling with God knows what, the Doctor sighed and looked up at the clock above him. He was bored. The same thing happened every Thursday; he had a day off and Rose would still be required at Torchwood for something or other. He suspected that it had something to do with the project which she still refused to tell him about. They had been on this planet now for nearly three years and had been together for the majority of that. He remembered the first time he tried to get her to tell him about it: she had told him that, although she was keeping something from him, there was reason behind it and he would find out soon enough. The Doctor was somewhat confused as to whether Rose knew the definition of the word 'soon' sometimes, since he was still none the wiser on what was going on even after all this time.

It also begged the question as to what she was doing that was taking her so long to complete.

He asked her about it sometimes, but that never went down well and would usually turn into a full-blown argument which led him to sleeping on the couch that night before making it up to her in the morning. It didn't matter how many times he tried to ask her what it was she was doing, the outcome was always the same. He had even said to her once that he wondered if she was ever going to tell him.

Of course, his words had been slightly harsher than that and it had meant that Rose had refused to speak to him for an entire week.

He regretted it as soon as the words were out and his anger had died down, but he often regarded the thought sometimes and often wondered if that was case.

He'd never ask her that again, though.

Despite that, however, their arguments on other topics were rare. When they had first got together, the Doctor often worried about Rose when she would come home covered in bruises and cuts from her day out in the field catching some rogue alien that the instituted had picked up on. He would tell her that she needed to be careful and that he was worried for her safety and didn't like it when she went out. Rose, being tired and in pain when this conversation arose, bit back a little too harshly sometimes and told him that he couldn't exactly wrap her up in bubble wrap.

The Doctor had learnt rather quickly that he had to accept Rose's job if he didn't want to find himself being kicked out of their room. He knew Rose could handle herself and he just had to stop letting his worry get the better of him.

But other than that, their relationship was steady and happy.

A year after getting together, they had moved out of the Tyler mansion and had found themselves a small place just outside of London. For somewhere so near a city it was tranquil and picturesque and, at first, Rose had wondered how on Earth the Doctor would cope in such a place like this. But he had been the one to find the house and suggest they take a look. They both fell in love with it and bought it almost at once. It had everything they needed. It was of a decent size with decent travel links and a town centre nearby. There were a couple of neighbours either side of them and they were nice enough.

The best thing of all though was that they were happy with where they were.

Sometimes they seemed to forget that they had lived any other life in a different universe.

They would talk about their days on the TARDIS from time to time, but unlike before, the sense of longing was no longer as prominent as it once was. The Doctor had always known that Rose would eventually adjust quite quickly back into a normal, human routine but he was surprised at how he had adjusted. He still missed the TARDIS dearly and he still missed the presence of her in his head, but he no longer felt empty without it. Occasionally, he might have one of his 'moments' as Rose had termed it where a look of longing might cloud his face and those who knew wouldn't press the matter. They never lasted as long anymore and everyone had noticed that in the last couple of years they had started to occur less frequently.

Even so, given the chance, both of them would return back to their old life at the drop of the hat.

They were just making do, as they say.

But they were doing it brilliantly.

...

The Doctor wasn't sure how long had passed since he had last looked up at the clock, he was deep in his own mind, but even he didn't know what he was doing there.

He jolted out of his non-existent thoughts at the sound of the door opening and closing and the sound of Rose's voice calling his name echoing through the halls.

It took three calls of his name for him to realise that there was an edge of concern in Rose's voice. Usually, he would wait for her to find him as he was often too engrossed in fixing some gadget or kitchen appliance to go to her and often she would come straight to the study and surprise him – usually in a very pleasant manner, if he did say so himself. However, there was none of that today and he made his way out of the study towards the kitchen area where he found Rose looking somewhat like the bearer of bad news.

Whatever it was she was about to say to him was in no way going to be good.

"Rose, what is it? Are you alright?" Now normally, Rose would smile a little at that; it still warmed her to know that she was his top priority, so when she reacted in no way whatsoever, the Doctor knew for certain that something was incredibly wrong.

"I'm fine, but there's something going on and I don't think it's good." She took a seat on one of the stools at the breakfast table and the Doctor followed her lead.

"What is it?"

"You know that there's been some conspiracies circulating the internet, right? About the 'stars going and dying', yeah?" The Doctor nodded, not liking where this seemed to be heading. Everyone had heard about these posts, but no one had thought much about them since it seemed to be the same old things posted again with people simply wanting to get some form of attention. "Well, it looks like they might not be just conspiracies anymore." She passed him a sheet of paper, a Torchwood watermark visible in the light.

"We were…working when Davey noticed a post from some site. He had the images checked and everything to make sure that they were genuine. Turns out they were."

The Doctor looked at her wide-eyed before looking down at the piece of paper Rose had given him. There were two pictures one was of the constellation of Orion, the picture taken only a couple of nights ago; the other had been taken last night and the Doctor could tell by the way the stars were aligned it was where Orion should be…but there was nothing there.

"That's impossible." The Doctor said finally looking from the paper to Rose and back again.

"I know and like I said the photos are genuine. There's something going on and people are starting to panic."

"We need to get to Torchwood now and figure out what's going on. I need to do some scans. Is this the only occurrence?" The Doctor stood up.

"I don't think so, there's been a lot of talk recently about this, but I think before it's just been the odd star disappearing not an entire constellation. If I didn't know any better I'd say that whatever's going on out there is either getting bigger and more powerful."

"Right you are." The Doctor agreed. "Come on then, let's see if we can sort this out before any lasting damage is done." He helped Rose up out of her seat and led the two of them towards the door.

…

They arrived at Torchwood not long later, the Doctor walking quickly to his lab. Rose matched his pace and neither of them gave as much as a second glance at those working as they made their way through the corridors.

"Right, I need to set this up." The Doctor said, walking over to a large computer in at the far end of the room. Rose didn't the faintest idea what it did exactly. It looked far too complex and high tech for her to even begin to understand the logistics of. It didn't matter how many times she had been in this room over the last three years, she didn't know what half the stuff in here did. That was for the best, really, she had tried asking once and, although the Doctor was more than happy to explain it to her, Rose had found herself cursing her curiosity once ten minutes of technobabble had gone in one ear and straight out the other. She loved the Doctor dearly, but she did find it hard to love his constant elaborate explanations which made no sense to her whatsoever. Still, she knew she'd miss it if it wasn't there.

"'K, I'll go get Nathan and Davey, they might be able to help." Rose suggested, hoping to make herself useful while the Doctor played around with his gadget.

"No need, we can manage. Been a long time since we last had a mystery to solve."

 _Yeah, and remember how that one turned out?_

"Right, so what should I do?"

"You, Miss Tyler, can go and ask your father if we can borrow the Torchwood zeppelin while I get this bloody thing to work."

"Why do we need the zeppelin?"

"Because I need to do a large scan which involves scanning above the Earth. And the only way I can do that without the TARDIS is to attach this," he held up a long pole with a bottom that looked perfect for attaching to pointed objects up to her. "to the top of this tower which, when activated will send signals to this computer here," he tapped the computer screen behind him. "and will tell us if there is any immediate danger."

"Immediate danger to what?"

"Not sure, never used this before." The Doctor told her. "In all honestly, I'm not even sure it works."

"Brilliant."

"I know!" He said excitedly not noticing the layer of sarcasm to Rose's remark. "Right, now off you go. I need that zeppelin otherwise it's a dangerous climb." He kissed her once before letting her go, getting back to work on setting up the receiver.

…

Rose had barely made it into her dad's office when he answered her unspoken request. She had only just stepped into the room when Pete looked up at her and said the words: 'whatever he needs the answer's yes".

"You didn't even know what I was going to ask." Rose told him.

"Love, Davey showed me those images he found, too, as soon as you left. I was told when you and the Doctor arrived not long ago. Believe me, if you hadn't turned up when you did, I'd've rung you myself." Pete told her. "There's something going on and your Doctor is the only one even remotely qualified enough to sort it out."

Rose didn't bother to remind her dad that the Doctor didn't actually have any qualifications as she understood what he meant. It was then that a sudden thought struck her.

"You haven't told mum have you?"

"No, love, best not to let her panic. Net yet at least; I didn't need her worrying Tony about the end of the world."

Rose gulped. She hadn't thought much on that. What would happen if this was one of those 'end of the world' events? Tony, her little brother, was barely three years old yet, born only nearly nine months after she and the Doctor had gotten together. She was fiercely protective of him as any sister would, but Jackie had told her that his birth had brought out an almost maternal side in her which she never really knew she had. The fact that there was some kind of danger out there – or could be at the very least – made her feel even more protective of the youngest member of their little family.

"So what was it that you needed?" Pete asked her bringing her out of her thoughts.

"The Doctor needs the zeppelin to attach something to the top of the building."

Pete said nothing and threw Rose the keys as he stood up from his desk.

"I hope for all our sakes that the two of you find nothing up there."

"So do I." Rose said before making her way out of her dad's office and back towards the Doctor's lab.

…

The Doctor looked up immediately from what he was doing as he heard the door open and Rose run in. She threw him something which he automatically caught, looking down at the object that was now in his hands.

"Dad knows there's something going on; told me that you can have anything you need if it means you can sort whatever's going on." Rose told him as he jogged over to him.

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" The Doctor pressed one more button on the receiver before standing up and taking Rose's hand, pulling her out of the door at the pace of a slow jog.

Rose went along with it happily, smiling despite herself and the situation. This was the first time in three years that they were needed to save the world; she couldn't help but realise how much she had missed it.

And judging by the way the Doctor was practically bouncing around the zeppelin as he prepared it for flight, Rose could tell that he had missed it too.

…

"Right, keep hold of the steering wheel and make sure you don't move it from this spot. Can't afford to have me falling out of the door. I'll be right back." The Doctor ran from the pilot's station to the large door on the side of the zeppelin.

As he tried to open it, the door resisted, fighting against the wind and the spin of the propellers. He gritted his teeth and tried again, harder this time. Eventually, the door swung open and the Doctor grasped hold of the nearest thing he could to stop himself from falling out. He could see in the corner of his eye that Rose was looking on at him in concern; she always did when he was about to do something dangerous.

"Please, for the love of God, be careful!" Rose shouted over at him. From the noise surrounding them, she wasn't sure whether or not the Doctor had heard her plea, but she felt the need to remind him regardless.

He must've heard her, however, as he looked at straight at her, an excited glee in his eyes. "Aren't I always?"

Rose knew better than to answer that and watched, keeping her hands tightly on the steering wheel, as the Doctor picked up the long pole he had showed her earlier, lay on his stomach and leaned out of the zeppelin. She couldn't see exactly what he was doing and a large part of her didn't want to know, but she still fought the urge to go over to him and hold his legs so that he wouldn't fall out if something were to happen.

The Doctor grimaced as he fought to keep himself from slipping out of the zeppelin. He had piloted the two of them within reaching distance of the top of the Torchwood tower and it was up to Rose to keep them at this safe distance. He trusted her, but knew that she didn't have much flying experience and wanted to get this done quickly to prevent any accidents from happening.

Carefully, he held the pole up so that he could easily fix it over the point of the building. He prayed to anyone who was listening that he didn't drop what he held in his hands; they hadn't the time for mishaps and the Doctor knew that this was the only chance he had of getting this right if he didn't want to waste any time.

Thankfully, he managed to get it on without any problems and he sighed a huge sigh of relief when he pressed a button on the base of the pole which lit up red, telling him that the device had connected to the one in his lab.

He relaxed for a moment before carefully easing himself back inside.

Now all they had to do was wait.

…

To say that the results that came back were not of any positive nature was the understatement of the century.

The Doctor looked in horror at what he read on the screen once as soon as they came through.

"What is it?" Rose asked, the worry evident in her voice and she looked at the Doctor's expression.

"Nothing good."

"I gathered that. Care to elaborate?"

The Doctor looked at her, taking off the glasses that he had put on his face only moments before.

"I'm not sure what, but there's something out there which is destroying everything. And I mean everything." Rose looked at him in a mixture of horror and confusion and he was about to continue speaking when the door was thrown open and Nathan came running in.

"Rose, it's working!" He cried and Rose looked straight at him, her eyes wide.

It was then that Nathan realised where he was and who she was with.

"Ah…erm…don't…" He stuttered trying to figure out a way to get himself out of this one. He knew that they were meant to be keeping this a secret, especially from the man that he saw with his colleague, looking from him to Rose in confusion.

"What is it?" The Doctor asked, curious to know what it was that Nathan was so excited about and why he didn't realise what this 'it' they were talking about was.

"It's nothing, don't worry, we've got other things to worry about right now." Rose tried, attempting to get his attention back to what they had just found out.

"No, what is it?" He looked at her properly now, ignoring Nathan altogether. "Rose, what is it?" There was a dark look in his eyes and Rose knew that she wasn't going to be able to get herself out of this one and, quite frankly, this was really not the right time to have start having an argument; not when it was clearly apparent that the world was currently in grave danger.

She sighed and then realised what it was that Nathan had said. It was working. It was working? When she had gone in that morning, the cannon had been far from ready. It had been slightly more active in the past few days, but it was nowhere near completion.

 _Something is destroying everything._

Her face paled and she looked straight at the Doctor, trying to hide the fear of her realisation from him.

"I think it's time I told you what I've been working on."


	9. NINE

**_This is the shortest chapter of the story so far and has by far caused me the most grief. It's a bit of a bridge between the two parts of the story._**

 ** _Just to let you know, I have a pretty damn good idea where I want to go with this. My plan for this part of the story is four pages long on Word - it is that detailed. So hopefully, writer's block shouldn't be as much of a problem, but we'll see._**

 ** _Anyway, I hope this chapter works alright and I apologise for it being so short, but it seemed like a good place to stop._**

* * *

"This is what you've been keeping from me for the last three years?" The Doctor looked directly at Rose from where she stood on the other side of the dimension cannon in the centre of the room. There was a look in his eyes which Rose couldn't quite make out. She was torn between disappointment and anger – neither what she was going for.

He didn't raise his voice, however, and that's when Rose finally settled on disappointment.

"I'm sorry," Rose said; she wasn't sure what else to say, really. Had she done the wrong thing in not telling him? And what about this 'danger' that they had spotted – was it all related? Had she indirectly contributed to the current destruction around them?

"Rose thought it was best that you didn't know." Nathan put in, not that it did much good. The Doctor and Rose merely looked at him and he kept quiet from then on, deciding that this was probably better dealt with between the two of them. "Tell you what, you guys discuss whatever it is you need to discuss, and we'll be just outside." He gestured to the few others that were in the room, who took the hint and left with him, leaving just the Doctor and Rose on either side of the dimension cannon.

It was only after everyone had left that the Doctor spoke again.

"Why, Rose? Why think it best to keep this from me?" He asked. There was a hurt in his voice which pulled at Rose's heartstrings.

"I guess I wanted to prove that I could do something on my own." Rose told him. She looked down as she spoke, afraid of what she might find in the Doctor's eyes if she dared look up.

"Rose…" he started, but she cut him off.

"When we were travelling, I was never of much use. I always either seemed to get in the way of mess something up when I did try to help. And I did; I tried. I know I always joked about you being useless without me, but I never really believed it. And I wanted it to be a surprise. The last three years haven't been easy for either of us, but for you especially. You're better now, but there are still days when I look at you and I know that all you can see is the TARDIS and how much you still miss her. It pained me to think that you would never see her again; so I talked to the team here and we came up with the Dimension Cannon. I thought, if it ever worked, we'd have a way to get home."

"Rose, look at me." Reluctantly she did, only to find that the Doctor had moved from where he had been stood opposite her and was now standing beside her.

She looked into his eyes, expecting there to be some form of anger or disappointment behind them, but she found neither. His eyes were soft and sincere and Rose wanted to look away but found she couldn't.

"No, the last three years haven't been easy for me, there's no denying that. I still miss having the TARDIS here and being able to feel her in my head and, yes, I miss the life I used to have. I miss the travelling and the adventure of it all, but that was all then. Now I've got a new adventure ahead of me. The one I thought I could never have again. I've been running for a long time, Rose; so long in fact, that I had forgotten how to live a simple life. But not anymore. Now it's time to stop, and the last three years have taught me that. I've learnt so much from this and, if there's one thing I've learnt more than anything, it's how joyous a life like this can be. I love you, Rose, and knowing that you're here means more to me than being able to go back. So don't ever think you're useless because heaven forbid, I have made many more mistakes than you ever will."

Rose chocked back a sob at his words. It was rare for him to be this honest and open with her and, in all the time they had been together, he had only said those three small, but powerful, words to her once or twice.

"I still wish you had told me about this." The Doctor told her, looking down from her eyes for a brief moment before looking up again.

"I know, and I really am sorry." There wasn't much else she could say, really.

"Come here." The Doctor took Rose into his arms, pulling her into a brief, but firm kiss before pulling her into a tight hug once his lips parted from hers. "You're forgiven."

They stayed like that for a few moments before Rose asked him the question she had been fearing the answer to ever since Nathan had burst in on them exclaiming that the cannon was now working.

"Doctor, is this my fault? Is everything being destroyed because of the Dimension Cannon?"

The Doctor let her go and held her at arms length; his face the perfect picture of shock at the revelation that she thought she had somehow caused this mess.

"Rose, God know, this isn't your fault." He stepped back and moved over to the cannon to emphasise his next point. "The only reason as to why this has started working – from what I can see – is because whatever is going on up there has meant that this dimension has started to collapse and, at a guess, I would say that it has also affected the void. With no barriers separating the different dimensions, there's nothing stopping this from working. And I have to say, it is one impressive piece of equipment – I'm impressed!"

"Thanks," Rose smiled at him, but didn't dwell on it as she remembered something else he had said. "Hold on, you said this dimension has started to collapse?"

The Doctor nodded and walked over to her, his expression grave. "Earlier, when the readings came back and I said that something was destroying everything. I did mean everything. And what I meant by that is that something is destroying this entire dimension – and possibly the void too, if this has started to work." He looked Rose straight in the eye, his expression never wavering. "And it might not be just here either. If it's affected the void then that means every single universe is in danger right now. Including our own."

"What's going to happen?"

"Honestly?" Rose nodded. "I don't know."

"So what do we do?"

"First off, we use your Dimension Cannon to check the readings from the void – see if my theory is right, and I've got a horrible feeling it might be. If I am right and the void has been affected then we have to find some way of stopping everything from dying."

"And how do we do that?"

The Doctor looked at her. "We use the Dimension Cannon to take us back. This universe is ahead of the one we came from – I noticed it the very first time we were here – meaning that, chances are, whatever is happening here, hasn't yet happened back home. If so, then we can find whatever's causing it, stop it, and save the whole of reality from doom."

"You make it sound so easy." Rose said dryly.

"Believe me, this is going to be anything but easy."


	10. TEN

_**A/N: Okay, so this chapter was extremely difficult to write and that's why it's taken so long to get to you.**_

 _ **Also, I need to say this, but I haven't seen an awful lot of Torchwood (in fact, I've seen about two episodes), so I apologise for any inaccuracies (though this story completely deviates from any form of cannon after Doomsday, so hopefully it shouldn't be too much of a problem). I also apologise Gwen and Ianto are out of character (Jack, too, actually as I don't write him often, but he's fairly easy to write sometimes) - like I said, I'm not familiar with Torchwood at all.**_

 _ **And, while I remember ('cause I always forget), I own a big fat nothing and this is purely for entertainment purposes only**_

* * *

It wasn't long after the Doctor and Rose had finished their conversation that the Cannon team were brought back into the room to help the Doctor with checking the readings. Rose found that she could do nothing but stand and watch as the team went about their work. The Doctor knew what it was he was looking for while Rose hadn't the faintest idea what was what. She may have had a hand in helping design and build the Dimension Cannon but, when it came to meta-dimensional readings, she was no help. Of course, because he was so busy – and rightly so, so Rose couldn't blame him – the Doctor barely noticed.

"Ah ha," the Doctor exclaimed. He was reading a print-out that he only just taken from the printer drawer moments before. Nothing about his exclamation told Rose that he was happy with what he was reading. In fact, it was more of an exclamation that suggested 'I was right' with a rather large hint of worry etched in there, too. Rose couldn't help but feel a deep sense of dread.

"What is it?" She asked with no attempt whatsoever to mask her worry.

"I was right; something has affected the Void and, whatever it is, it's killing it." The Doctor said gravely.

"Which means it could also affect other universes? Including our own?" Rose asked, knowing exactly where the Doctor was going with this.

"Yes."

"Then hadn't we get on with trying to save the universe? Or should I say universe _s_?" Rose smiled at the Doctor as he looked at her and found that, despite the situation they had suddenly found themselves in, he couldn't help but smile back at her.

Just like old times.

…

As expected, Pete understood that they had to do what they needed and immediately told them that he would allow for the Cannon team to let the two of them travel across the dimension if that's what they needed to do.

His only request from them was simple enough:

Tell Jackie.

And, despite being his mother-in-law in all but the eyes of the law, the Doctor would rather face a fleet of Daleks than explain to Jackie that their plan to save the universe involved him and her daughter travelling back home using a Dimension Cannon that hadn't actually yet been tested for any form of safety – simply because there just wasn't time – not knowing what they might come across once they got there. If they got there, that should be.

Yep, this was certainly going to go down well.

"You want to do _what_?!" Jackie said, her voice rising just a little too much for the Doctor's liking as she reached the end of her question of disbelief.

To be honest, though, it was a relief that she hadn't slapped him.

Yet.

The Doctor tried not to shudder at the mere thought.

"Look Jackie, I know this isn't ideally what you want to hear and, believe me, if there was another way or if we had time to test the Cannon then we would. But the truth of the matter is just that; there isn't enough time. This universe is already affected; the other is running behind this one so, with a bit of luck, nothing has happened there yet, meaning that we might be able to find an explanation as to what is happening and, hopefully, a solution." The Doctor explained, praying that Jackie would understand.

"But why can't you do this on your own? Why do you have to put Rose in danger, too?" Considering Rose was her daughter, Jackie's question was fair enough and the Doctor understood the fact that she was concerned for her daughter's safety. If he was honest with himself, he would rather he wasn't putting Rose in unknown danger, but he couldn't see an alternative. Every time he sent her somewhere to keep her safe, she came back.

Fortunately, he was saved from having to answer Jackie's question as Rose decided to answer on her own behalf.

"Because this is what we do – together. I never left his side before we came here and I have no intention of doing so now." Rose told her mother. "And I know you've never really liked the idea of the Doctor whisking me off to places that might propose a threat but, the truth is, I wouldn't have it any other way and, for three years now, we haven't been able to do anything that we used to. Now's our chance – there's no way I'm missing out on this." She finished explaining and Jackie found that she had nothing to say that would make her daughter change her mind and stay behind.

"OK, fine, but please be careful." Jackie sighed. She had no choice but to give in.

Giving her mother a tight hug, Rose smiled at her before making her way towards the entrance of the mansion with the Doctor.

"Oh, and Doctor," Jackie called after them. The two of them stopped in their tracks before turning around and looking at Jackie behind them. "Look after her."

The Doctor looked at Rose and gave a small smile before looking back at Jackie. "Always." He then took hold of Rose's hand and led her out of the mansion and to the car parked on the gravel outside.

…

"Right, are you both sure about this?" Nathan asked as he passed both the Doctor and Rose a small device that would allow them to travel across the dimension. It wasn't far off the device that this version of Torchwood had come up with the last time that they had travelled across the Void. The Doctor was pleased, however, to see that it was smaller and less yellow than those had been. He couldn't help but look at it in amazement, but there was something bothering him at the same time. it had been at the back of his mind since Rose had told him about the Cannon. But, for the life of him, he couldn't work out what it was. He had been too busy thinking about other things to really pay attention to what his mind was clearly trying to tell him. They had a whole set of universes to save; now was not the best time to dwell on this. If he remembered, he'd come back to it later once this was all over with.

"As sure as it's possible to be." The Doctor told him.

"Good." Nathan pointed over at the Cannon in the centre of the room. "This will send a reading to the computer screen when you land, letting us know when and where you are – but only geographically. We won't have any idea if you've landed in the right universe but there is a return button on the device which'll bring you back, should you find yourself in the wrong place. Sorry we can't be more accurate."

"It's fine," Rose told him. "I spent two years with his useless driving; it's not unheard of for us to land in the wrong place." She nodded in the Doctor's direction.

"Oi! I wasn't that bad!"

"Twelve months, Doctor."

The Doctor found he had no response to that.

Nathan just laughed at the two of them. God, he was going to miss them.

No, he shouldn't think like that; they would be back, he was sure of it.

That's what he liked to tell himself, anyway.

…

The feeling of travelling through to a different dimension was, quite frankly, ineffable. There were no words to describe how you felt, it just was what it was. It wasn't as if you could see anything, but it also wasn't as if you could see nothing. There was no indication that the journey took any time at all but, at the same time, a lifetime could have passed you by.

It was a unique experience. But you could never tell if it was a good one or a bad one.

When they arrived, it was dark. There were people running around, screaming. It was chaos.

Utter chaos.

"What the…oh," the Doctor looked around at their surroundings when his eyes fixated on something above them. Rose looked up too and gasped in surprise.

"Oh my God."

"It can't be." The Doctor said, his teeth grit together in the way Rose had come to know that he was trying to hold back some kind of anger.

"Doctor, what's happening? Are we in the right place?"

"Yes, we're in the right universe. The Earth has been moved. Look at the sky," he gestured up and Rose's eyes followed to where the Doctor was pointing. "This isn't your region of space."

"But, how are we still alive? The Earth would have lost the sun and the moon. There shouldn't be any heat and the tides would be chaos."

"Something wants the human race alive, it seems."

"But that's good, surely?"

"Not necessarily." The Doctor looked down from the sky and took Rose's hand. "Come on, let's go and find someone. There's an extra-terrestrial planet-wide crisis involved, I bet there's someone from UNIT around here somewhere."

As they turned around, facing the other way, above the noise of the pandemonium surrounding them, a voice rang out. It was oddly familiar, but it was too mixed in with the screams and shouts that it was difficult to pick out exactly what it was saying.

But it did sound somewhat like he – they were sure it was a man – was shouting their names.

Turning back around, they tried to locate where the voice was coming from. And, despite the crowd surrounding them, it didn't take long for them to recognise a familiar figure running very fast towards them.

"Doctor, is that…?" Rose asked turning towards the man standing next to her. She was in a state of disbelief; she hadn't seen this man since the Game Station, some four years previously. The Doctor said that he was rebuilding the Earth and refused to anything else on the matter. She had never believed him, always thinking that he was hiding something from her and that this man was dead – no doubt killed by the Daleks. She often wished she could remember more from what happened.

But that didn't matter right now. What mattered was what was going on around them and the fact that a very fast, very alive Captain Jack Harkness was running towards them.

"Jack?" Rose asked, still in shock as their old friend came up to them.

However, there was nothing in his expression that suggested they had any time to catch up right now. They were slap bang in the middle of some crisis and now was not the right time for a catch up.

"You two better come with me, and quickly."

There was no time to argue or to ask where it was they were going; both the Doctor and Rose followed their old friend to wherever it was he was taking them.

"Step on," he told them.

"On what?" Rose asked.

"That paving stone."

The Doctor could tell Rose was about to argue and so gently pushed her to do as Jack told them. They didn't have time for questions now. They could ask any and all questions they had later when they were less pressed for time. And, boy, did he have some questions he wanted answers to.

Both the Doctor and Rose were in awe as the hub came into view.

"Whoa, what is this place?"

"Torchwood," the Doctor all but snarled noticing the name of the institution on one of the walls. "You work for Torchwood?" This was directed at Jack as the three of them made their way further into the hub.

Jack turned to look at the Doctor. "This isn't the Torchwood from Canary Wharf." He told him. "When that collapsed the other year, I set up this one in your honour." The tone in his voice was telling of a tension that existed between the two of them, which Rose had no idea about. She had spent months with Jack on the TARDIS before the Game Station and, yes, their relationship had certainly been an interesting one, but all comments were tongue-in-cheek. There hadn't been this much tension between her old friend and the Doctor since the two of them first met.

It scared Rose to think how long ago that was.

"And you didn't think to change the name?"

"No, as it happens, I did not. My mind was on other things. For example, how Rose's name was listed on the list of the dead and how you seemed to disappear from the face of the universe about the same time. That, and I was still trying to come to terms with the idea of whether or not I could forgive you for abandoning me."

"Did I?" The Doctor asked as though it meant nothing to anybody.

Rose, on the other hand, couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Hold on, what?!" She looked from the Doctor to Jack and back again. "You did what?!"

The Doctor looked at Rose, hoping that there was something he could say to get her to let the topic go, but he knew it was futile. "Rose…"

"No, don't." She stopped him. "You told me, when I asked, that Jack was rebuilding the Earth!" She said. "You never once let on that you had just left him there, in 200,100, with a fleet of Daleks!"

"The Daleks were gone by the time we left." The Doctor told her, choosing that as the point to focus on.

By now, the other two members of the Torchwood team had noticed what was going on and decided to make themselves known.

"'cuse me, but what is going on here?" The young Welsh woman asked coming up to the three of them. "Unless you haven't noticed Jack, there are planets in the sky and, right now, we don't know what's caused them to be there, so do you three think you can sort your differences out some other time?" She looked directly at the Doctor and Rose. "Who are you anyway?"

"Gwen, Ianto," Jack pointed at his team members individual before pointing to the Doctor and Rose. "This is the Doctor and Rose Tyler."

"So you're this mysterious Doctor?" Ianto asked. "Jack mentions you from time to time, but very rarely by name."

"Yeah, that's me…I'm surprised he talked about me at all…considering." The Doctor said, scratching the back of his neck.

"You're different from how I imagined you'd be." Gwen said, although, quite frankly, she wasn't sure how she would've imagined him in the first place. Jack never gave a description. But, of course, the Doctor didn't know that.

"That reminds me," the Doctor turned to Jack, all previous tension now seeming to disappear. It was strange how easily the Doctor seemed to forget about what he had done to his old friend and move straight on. "How did you know it was me?"

Jack nodded as if expecting this question to come about. "When I saw you with Rose on the cameras, I started to wonder. I'd heard all about Time Lord regeneration when I was a kid – although with the myths of the War, I never knew how true it all was. But I have a 'Doctor-detector'."

"A 'Doctor-detector'?" Rose asked, her eyebrow raised in confusion.

"Yeah," Jack nodded before walking towards him office and coming back a few moments later with a bubbling jar, containing something inside that horrifyingly resembled a hand.

"B…but." The Doctor started, looking closely at the bubbling hand within the glass. "That's mine!"

"What?!" Rose asked.

"You remember, don't you? Christmas Day; the sword fight?"

"How could I forget?"

"Well, this is my hand that I lost that day." The Doctor told her and Rose just nodded. She had learnt very early on that it was best not to question things when they concerned the Doctor. Just accept it and go – that was her moto.

"Where did you find it?" The Doctor asked, now looking at Jack.

"Stumbled upon it the day after. Just be glad I did. If that had landed up in the wrong hands, God knows what would have happened."

"You've no idea how many times we've wanted to ask him about that thing. Thank God we now know." Gwen said, mainly looking at Rose as she spoke.

Rose looked back at her and found that there was something familiar about the woman standing next to her. She wanted to ask Gwen some questions but now wasn't the time. Like she had said, there were planets in the sky and, as of yet, they had no idea what had happened and, maybe more importantly, why.

"Oh, and there's something else you should know." Jack announced as he put the jar down only for the Doctor to pick it up again.

"What?"

"Ianto here used to work for Torchwood One and managed to escape the Cybermen attacks on the tower. When the ordeal was over, he went back, hoping to find survivors." Jack started.

"It was at that time, after the battle, that Jack came – I assume now that he had been looking for you. I was down stairs, on the bottom floor. I knew how valuable some of the stuff was that Torchwood had collected since it formed and knew that it couldn't be shown to the public. Therefore, I wanted to make sure anything too valuable was out of the way before the authorities came. That was when I saw it. We had all been told about it in briefings; always told to look out for it. I was just about to go near it when I heard Jack call out for me to stop." Ianto explained, looking at Jack for the rest of the explanation.

Jack nodded, affirming what Ianto had told them. "I think it's best you come with me for this bit. I suspect you'll both want to see it."

He led them out of the main area of the hub and into a room out near the back.

"Perception filter on the door. Don't trust your own people, then?" The Doctor asked as he and Rose walked into the darkened room.

"It's not that…sometimes I don't trust myself." Jack told them honestly.

Suddenly the Doctor gasped and clutched at his head, his mind being filled by an all-too familiar presence. He had only just gotten used to the emptiness he had felt on a daily basis for the last three years and, so to have his mind filled once more, it came as a shock. He hadn't been prepared, so the intrusion hurt a little.

"Doctor, you alright?" Rose asked, the concern evident in her voice.

"Yeah…b-but. Can't be." He looked across at Jack and Rose could see that there was a pleading look in his eyes. He knew what was in this room and Rose knew, from that expression, that he hoped he was right.

Turning on the lights, Jack revealed what was yet another door at the back of the small room they had entered. He smiled knowingly at the Doctor and Rose before unlocking the door and pulling it open.

What it contained made Rose gasp in surprise and the Doctor's face light up in a way that had happened very rarely during their time away.

Standing proudly in the cupboard-like area behind the door, its brilliant blue-coloured panels contrasting with the dull greyish colour of the walls surrounding it, stood the one thing that both Rose and the Doctor had accepted they might never see again.

The TARDIS.


	11. ELEVEN

_**A/N: So sorry that it's been so long. I've struggled with this chapter and I have been busy with other things...and it's also been bloody hot recently and me and heat do not mix. Plus, I'm back at work now, working mornings (I'm not a morning person), so sometimes come home feeling rather tired. Also, the second half of this chapter wasn't on the original plan for this story...it just seemed to work easier. It's those small details that are the hardest to make fit...**_

 _ **Hopefully, the next chapter won't take another four months...I hope not.**_

 _ **(I own nothing and apologies for any typos and that that I didn't spot while working on this chapter)**_

* * *

The Doctor laughed in pure delight as he pushed open the doors of his ship for the first time in three long years, and all but ran up the ramp towards the console.

As Rose followed him inside, her own face lit up with a bright smile, she noticed how the TARDIS's lights were dimmed is if the ship was saving power. However, it wasn't long before she heard the Doctor let out a gleeful laugh again as the lights brightened in the way that her mind had never forgot.

However, she didn't let herself walk any further than the top of the ramp. Jack hadn't yet followed them inside and Rose knew it was to let them celebrate this moment on their own. The fact that she hadn't moved an inch closer to the console was down to the same reasoning: she wanted to let the Doctor have this moment to himself. After all, it had been him who had lost the most that day at Canary Wharf – despite what he said. It brought tears to her eyes to see him back where he belonged.

The Doctor noticed her standing by the ramp and ran up to her before scooping her up in his arms. Letting out a surprised squeal, Rose let him spin her around before setting her down and pressing a kiss to her lips. Despite what was currently going on around him, the Doctor couldn't contain the happiness he was feeling to be back in his home with the woman he loved.

Of course, with their life the way it was, it just so happened that Jack decided on that moment to walk into the ship.

"Excuse me, but when did this happen?" He asked and both the Doctor and Rose pulled away from each other in shock. They had forgotten that he had been out there waiting for them.

"When did what happen?" The Doctor asked as if Jack hadn't witnessed that kiss.

" _That_ ," he said, gesturing towards them. He knew full well that the Doctor was trying to avoid telling him but there was no way that he was letting this go in a hurry – end of the world or not. "You two," he continued, "or do you kiss everyone in this regeneration when you've something to celebrate?"

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, feeling incredibly embarrassed about having been caught out, but he didn't manage to say anything before Rose took it upon herself to answer for him. The Doctor couldn't help but feel a sense of relief.

"Happened about three years ago, Jack," Rose explained. "New Year's Eve, a few months after we found ourselves trapped."

"That's brilliant!" Jack cried in genuine happiness. "And about time, too," he laughed. "Even when I was travelling with you I often wondered when I might stumble upon a sight like this."

"Well, there will be no more stumbling, that's for sure," the Doctor said, still clearly embarrassed by what had happened.

"You're no fun, you know that?"

The Doctor just smiled.

The moment was ruined when Rose chose to bring everyone back into their present situation.

"As much as I want to continue this reunion, we should probably get back to finding out what the hell has happened here," she told them. "I don't know about you, but I don't have a very good feeling about all this."

"You're right, nor me," the Doctor said. He moved so he was standing in front of the scanner. "However, now that I have my TARDIS back, we should be able to find out what's happening sooner rather than later."

"How're you gonna do that?" Rose asked.

"I'm setting the TARDIS up to scan for anything extra-terrestrial. As soon as she's found something, she'll let us know immediately."

"And if she doesn't find anything?" Jack wondered aloud.

"Then we'll cross that bridge if we come to it," the Doctor replied. "Though, I highly doubt that'll be the case."

As the Doctor finished setting up the TARDIS and awaited for some kind of result, Jack turned to Rose. "So," he said conversationally. "Three years, how did you cope?"

Rose thought for a moment before answering. "It wasn't easy – 'specially not at first," she started. "But as you can imagine it was harder for the Doctor than it was me. Eventually things seemed to fall into place and we just got on with it. Got jobs at Torchwood, lived a life like everyone else."

One part of that caught Jack's attention. "Hold on, you worked for Torchwood, too?" He looked at the Doctor. "So it's okay for you to work for an organisation you despise, but if someone else – someone like me does – suddenly that's wrong?"

It was a valid question, Rose thought, but, as ever, the Doctor had an answer:

"Different universe, different Torchwood. The one in that world wasn't set up in the same way as the one me and Rose visited in this – the one you took over from. That Torchwood wasn't responsible for the ghosts. That Torchwood wasn't responsible for me nearly losing Rose for good."

"What happened?" Jack asked.

The Doctor didn't reply.

A silence passed over the three of them for a moment before Rose spoke up, looking directly at Jack.

"What about you, what've you been doing?"

"Oh, this and that, rebuilding this place, saving the world," he replied. "Just because the Doctor hasn't been here doesn't mean that the rest of the universe has gone into hiding."

"I'm sorry Jack," Rose said, looking down.

"You've nothing to be sorry for," he told her, truthfully.

"If I had known that he'd left you, I would've made him go back," she glanced over at the Doctor for a second who was looking at the screen in front of him. She wasn't sure if he was actually looking at anything or just pretending to so he could listen in discreetly. She found she didn't really care.

"There must've been a reason he didn't tell you and, once this is all over, I'll find out what it is."

Rose was about to answer when a sudden beeping noise surrounding the console room. Both herself and Jack turned to face the Doctor who stood up straight and glanced back at the two of them.

"Seems like whoever did all this has a message for us," the Doctor announced, his voice slightly on the grim side.

"What is it?" Rose asked.

"Give it a mo, the TARDIS is just translating it."

A moment later, the beeps turned into something more language-recognisable. One constant English word replaced the high-pitched beeping. The word alone enough to root the three of them to their spots, all as still as statutes; looks for fear and horror evident on their faces as they looked at one another.

It was a word they had all heard before; a word they had never wanted to hear again. It was a fairly simple word, but the message was clear enough:

EXTERMINATE.

"No," Jack breathed.

"Doctor…" Rose said, her voice trembling as she looked over at him. He looked as though he had frozen; in fear or horror or hatred, it wasn't clear. His face was blank and held almost no emotion. It was a look that neither Rose nor Jack had seen for a long time; a look that only ever happened when Daleks were involved.

Eventually, the Doctor's eyes met Rose's and she could suddenly see the hidden fear within them.

Every time they fought them, defeated them, they just came back.

Not knowing what else she could do, Rose walked up to the Doctor and wrapped her arms around his neck bringing him into a tight hug. He responded and held her tight, burying his face in the space where her neck met her shoulder.

"We fought them before, we can do it again," she said gently into his hair. She felt him nod against her shoulder and Rose felt a pang of sorrow for the man in her arms. Yes, she had fought Daleks herself, she knew what they were capable of, but she wasn't the one who had sacrificed everything to rid the universe of them, only for them to have survived again and again. This wasn't the way she had envisaged their return to this universe, but it was what it was and now they had a job to do.

…

Having not yet come up with any sort of plan, the Doctor had long since turned off the speakers on the TARDIS, silencing the Daleks' tormenting battle-cry and engulfing the ship into an eerie silence that no one dared break.

By now, Ianto and Gwen also knew about the Daleks. A few times since they had first heard the Daleks' message, Jack had been out of the TARDIS checking to see that they were alright, that no Daleks had made their way into the hub. So far, thankfully, they had not. Jack couldn't help but wonder how long they might have in the safety of Torchwood Three. It may be hidden, but the Daleks weren't stupid; eventually they would discover them, he just hoped they were ready when they did.

It was torture, this; not knowing what to do, knowing that right now, there were probably people being killed worthlessly. Jack looked across at the Doctor, sat closely next to Rose on the jump seat, hoping that any moment now he would jump up, announcing a brilliant plan that he had been trying to work through in his head. However, the more seconds that ticked away, the less likely Jack thought it was going to happen.

Suddenly a ringing noise came from inside the TARDIS. Startled everyone came out of their daze, wondering what it was. It took a few moments before Rose realised that it was her mobile ringing in her pocket. It was the same phone she had had since before becoming trapped in the other universe. For some reason, she hadn't been able to part with it and had always kept it close. Who on Earth would be ringing her on it though? The walls may be breaking down, but no one in the other universe even rang her on it anymore. It only added to the mystery.

"That you?" Jack asked, looking towards Rose.

"Yeah…" Rose said, taking the phone out of her pocket and looking at the caller ID. "It's Sarah-Jane," she said.

At that the Doctor looked over at her. "What? How?"

"We exchanged numbers after the deal at the school," she explained before pressing the answer button and putting the receiver to her ear. "Hello?"

 _"Rose?! Is that you? Thank goodness. Are you with the Doctor? You need to come to Earth right away; there're Daleks here, taking people. I don't know where they're taking them, but I can only guess it's their ship."_

"Sarah, calm down, we're on Earth. We know about the Daleks, we're at Torchwood in Cardiff, where're you?"

 _"Ealing, London."_

"Alright, I'll let him know and we'll come and get you. Sounds like we're gonna need all the help we can get."

 _"Thank you! See you soon."_

"And you," Rose then hung up and looked at the Doctor. "We need to go to London and find Sarah," she said.

The Doctor nodded and made his way to the console plugging in the co-ordinates and setting the TARDIS into motion. Rose wanted to make a joke about not landing in Aberdeen this time, but decided against it. The Doctor had barely said a full sentence in the last God-knows-many-minutes so she didn't think he would be in the mood for her teasing humour right now.

"What're we going to do once we're in London?" Jack piped up, but he received no answer.

"Doctor, you okay?" Rose asked, placing a hand on his shoulder. She didn't like his silence now. When the Doctor was this quiet, then you knew things were about as bad as they could get.

"I'm always okay," he said looking at her, smiling gently at her. He knew that they both knew he was lying, though.

…

The TARDIS landed with a small bump, and the Doctor led the way out of the ship, hoping that they had landed in the right place. When he found that they were a few streets away from where he had wanted to be, he inwardly groaned.

"Where is everyone?" Jack asked as he and Rose both stepped out of the TARDIS and onto the disserted street surrounding them.

"Sarah-Jane said that they were taking the people off the streets. She didn't know where, but she guessed it was their spaceship," Rose explained.

"You can bet your life they're not there to make the Daleks tea and biscuits," the Doctor said darkly. He then started to walk away from the TARDIS and further down the street.

"Where're you going?" Jack asked.

"I'm going to find Sarah," the Doctor answered. "Both of you stay here, I won't be long."

"No, we're coming with you," Rose said making her way towards him.

"Rose, no, stay here," he told her. "Please," he looked at her pleadingly. "You'll be safer in the TARDIS."

Rose looked at him, crossing her arms. "Since when has that worked? You trying to keep me away?"

"Please," he repeated. "Just this once, please. I'm coming back."

The Doctor knew that it was likely Rose would try and fight back again. However, much to his relief, he watched as he saw the fight go out of her eyes as she conceded, letting him win just this once.

"Alright, fine," she said. "But be careful. If you're not back in less than hour, then we're coming after you."

The Doctor gave her a mock salute and a "yessir" before making his way down the road.

Rose and Jack watched by the TARDIS as the Doctor walked away from them. Jack could tell that Rose was worried and trying to stop herself from going after him. It was nice to know that things hadn't changed all that much since he had been away. They were still both so fiercely protective of each other, never wanting to see the other in any form of danger. The care that they had for one another had always been a way of telling what their true feelings were. It was good to know that it was no longer just Jack and any other outsider that knew what they were now. There was something to be said for knowing you loved and were loved in return. It was a feeling Jack knew he might never have – not like he wanted. Not with his life the way it was.

He was content to let himself wander through the darker parts of his mind for a while, momentarily forgetting about the planet-wide crisis that was occurring and the fact that, on top of all that, there were Daleks involved.

However, reality always had a way of pulling you back. Within only a minute or so of watching the Doctor walk down the street, waiting for him to be out of sight before himself and Rose made their way back into the TARDIS, Jack heard a sound that made his blood run cold.

He glanced at Rose. She'd heard it, too. How could she not?

"EXTERMINATE."

Barely a fraction of a second later, a deathly laser shot out from inside an alley way.

It was heading straight for the Doctor.

" _Doctor!"_ Rose yelled, but it was too late. He hadn't seen it in time; hadn't been able to move quickly enough away. Neither Rose nor Jack could see his face, but they both knew the look of horror that was clearly there as the Doctor realised his fate.

Powerless to do anything and rooted to the spot in fear, both Rose and Jack prayed that the unlikely would happen and that the Dalek's shot would miss the Doctor by millimetres. Luck, however, was clearly not on their side as, they watched, terrified at the scene unfolding before them, as the laser hit the Doctor, his skeleton showing for a brief second, before he collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Not caring that there was a Dalek just around the corner, Rose made a run for it; running towards the man she loved, praying that he wasn't dead. He couldn't be dead. He just couldn't be.

Jack had tried to stop her, but she was more than a match for him and had pulled away easily. Not knowing what else he could do, Jack ran after her, hoping that, if the Dalek shot again (an event that was more than likely now that it obviously knew they were here) it was hit him first. He would survive. Rose would not.

But occasionally miracles happen and just as Rose was about to reach the Doctor, the Dalek that had now started to come out of its hiding place was consumed in an explosion of fire, killing it instantly.

Rose fell to her knees beside the Doctor, ignoring the scene behind her. His body was twitching and twisting around in odd angles, clearly in a tremendous amount of pain, but he was definitely still alive – thank heavens.

"Doctor," she called, trying to get him to open his eyes and look at her. "Doctor, look at me." Tears formed in her eyes as all the Doctor could manage were pain groans. Rose took hold of his head, preventing him from hitting it on the ground any more than he had already done. It was the least she could do.

"Please don't die," she said through tears. "Oh my God, please don't die."

"Rose," was all the Doctor could grunt before he groaned again as the pain started to worsen.

"Oh my God," a new voice – a familiar voice – cried. The sound of something large and heavy fell to the ground and a second pair of hands came into Rose's view, helping her trying to keep the Doctor still as possible.

"Mum," Rose realised, looking up at her mother, not bothering to hide the tears that were falling down her cheeks.

"It'll be okay; he'll be okay," Jackie said, but, although they were the words she knew Rose needed to hear, she couldn't help but wonder if they were actually true.

"Get him into the TARDIS, now!" Jack ordered. He picked up what Jackie had dropped – a large gun, responsible for killing the Dalek that had shot the Doctor. He held it properly, looking around for any sign that they were not alone, as Rose and Jackie took hold of the Doctor, lifting him off of the ground as carefully as they could.

Together, they made their way back to the TARDIS. Thankfully, the Doctor hadn't gotten too far before he had been shot, but the walk was more than long enough considering the danger they were in. That, and with the added weight of having to half carry, half drag the Doctor back the way he had come, only slowed them down.

The TARDIS, knowing what was happening, had unlocked her doors, allowing them to push through without trouble. Once they were inside, Jackie and Rose dragged the Doctor up the ramp and put him down by the console. He was still grunting and groaning in pain, but it was quieter now and Rose knew that he was dying. The thought only made her cry harder.

"What do we do?" Jackie asked, almost hysterically, looking from the Doctor on the ground, Rose by his side, and Jack standing a little way away and back again.

"Just step back," Jack said, emotionlessly. Jackie did what she was told, but Rose held back, still holding on to the Doctor.

"No," Rose managed to choke.

Jack walked up to her, prepared to drag her away if necessary. "Rose, he's dying and you know what happens next."

"Please Doctor, no." Yes, she knew what was about to happen, but that didn't mean she had to like it. It wasn't really the fact that he was going to change that terrified her, not really. She had been through it before and she knew she could do it again. She didn't want him to change, however, and she knew he didn't want to, either. What she was really terrified about, though, was what would happen after. Last time, he had fallen into a type of coma, unable to do anything for the majority of the time. What if something worse happened this time? What if he didn't make it through the regeneration? How would they fight the Daleks then? Last time, they had fought Sycorax; compared to the Daleks, they were nothing – a mere annoyance. This was much bigger. They needed the Doctor.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor managed. For second, he stopped convulsing and looked Rose in the eye and a moment passed between them. He said nothing more, but the look he gave her said everything. Their relationship had never been about words, not really. He barely said the words 'I love you', but it was through the looks he gave her that Rose knew, had always known.

A second later, he groaned again and Jack took that as his cue to move Rose out of the way. She barely struggled, but Jack wasn't about to take his chances.

Once he knew everyone was safely out of the way, the Doctor began to hoist himself up. It wasn't an easy task considering the amount of pain he was in as he felt his body dying. Eventually, using the TARDIS as support, he managed to get himself almost upright.

By now he could feel the regeneration energy filling his veins. He couldn't hold back any longer. But he held back for a few more seconds, enough time to look at Rose directly one more time in his body. His eyes catching hers once more as he once again traded silent declarations with her.

"I'm sorry," he said again, still focussing on Rose. He saw her give him a small smile in return and that was when he felt his time run out. He stood up straight as his body was consumed by the energy within him.

The Doctor was regenerating.


	12. TWELVE

**_A/N: Right, well, sometimes I wonder why I even bother trying to write plans I really do. Suppose it helps a bit...however, as you've probably guessed, what happens in this chapter isn't what I had originally planned. However, it came to me the other day and I decided to go with it and try and make it work. And I have thought about how it is going to affect the story and once I realised that it could work, I decided to roll with it._**

 ** _Anyway, so here is chapter 12 (finally!). It's writing chapters like this that make me realise why I don't write this genre very much...it doesn't half take up a lot a brain power! Honestly, I didn't realise this was going to be so difficult and all I'm doing is adding my own spin on an already existing plot! Still, it's a challenge I'm willing to take._**

 ** _I hope this is alright, it's taken me ages to get round to writing it and it's a little shorter than my normal chapters (but not by much). I go back down to Brighton next weekend for Uni so I don't know when I'll get a chance to write chapter 13 (or anything really), but hopefully I'll find some time either before I go or in that week before term officially starts back up._**

 ** _See you soon!_**

* * *

Once off of the phone with Rose, Sarah-Jane knew that she had no choice other than the wait for the TARDIS to arrive. She looked across at Luke, still standing there beside her looking increasingly worried. He'd already had to deal with so much in the short time that he had been alive, but this was all-together something knew. Yes, their adventures had been dangerous and he was just a kid, but they were now dealing with Daleks and that was something Sarah-Jane had hoped her son would never have to face. She just hoped that she could keep him safe.

Time passed and there was still no sign of the TARDIS. It was then that Sarah-Jane decided to take matters into her own hands.

Grabbing her coat, she started to make her way towards the door, but not before she could give Luke one last hug and telling him to keep himself safe.

"But there are Daleks out there!" He reminded her.

"I know, but I have to find him. I have to find the Doctor. He's not here yet and I'm worried that something must have happened. You'll be safer here."

 _"I will keep him safe, Sarah-Jane,"_ Mr Smith piped up.

Sarah-Jane looked from her son to the computer and back again. She didn't want to leave him here, but, like he had said, there were Daleks outside. If he stayed here, there was more of a chance that he would be able to hide should anything happen. At least, that's what she told herself.

"I love you, remember that," she told him, her voice cracking ever so slightly. She knew full well that this could be the last time she saw him.

Without another word, she left the attic and made her way down to her car, quickly starting the engine and driving off, keeping her eyes peeled for any sign of the TARDIS.

…

She saw nothing. Just empty streets. Car abandoned and belongings left carelessly on the ground. It looked like a ghost town; the Daleks having taken people straight from their ordinary lives. It was a horrific sight to see.

But there was still no sign of the TARDIS and Sarah-Jane's worry only began to increase. What if something had happened? Having travelled with him she knew he was likely to get himself caught somehow soon, but she just hoped that that hadn't happened before she knew where he was. She needed hope right now; hope that there was some way out of this. Without knowing where the Doctor was, she couldn't allow herself the luxury of hoping.

It was then that she almost ran into two Daleks facing away from her.

They immediately turned around and Sarah-Jane briefly wondered if she would ever know the feeling of hope ever again.

…

The thoughts kept running through Rose's head at high speed. She wanted to be able to do something – to stop it if she could – but she was powerless to do anything. She was being held on to tightly by Jack who had both her and her mother in his grasp, shielding them from the blinding light coming from the body, but Rose also knew she was trying to stop her from running to him.

She desperately wanted to, though. They didn't have time for this. Not now. And the more she thought about it, the more she began to realise that it might be up to them to save everything and everyone should something go wrong. But there was no way that they could do this alone. It had been a long time since she had fought anything trying to take over the world – let alone bloody Daleks! They had barely made it out alive the other times they had seen them and that was without the Doctor being in a post-regenerated state. No, they needed him, they wouldn't make it out alive without him.

The change seemed to go on longer than it had done last time, but Rose didn't know how much of that was down to her own sense of time having seemed to slow down to a halt. However, within that time she felt something spark inside her mind.

 _Stop him_

That wasn't her own voice inside her head, she knew that much. It was an odd voice, mystical yet strangely metallic. Almost as though whoever had spoken was part alive and machine.

She ignored it, it wasn't as if she could do anything even if she wanted to.

But the voice came again – stronger this time – and Rose found herself unable to ignore it this time.

 _You can stop him. You must._

But how?

Almost like a magnet, Rose began to feel herself pulling out of Jack's hold. She felt him try and hold on to her – even felt her mother try and grab her to stop her from moving away – but nothing worked and she found herself moving towards the Doctor, unable to stop herself.

She didn't feel in control of her own body, but wasn't panicking. She felt oddly calm. The voice in her head had quietened now, but the force inside her mind, pulling her to him, only grew stronger.

The moment she reached him a golden glow surrounded her. It seemed to last for a while before suddenly fading. The second it did so, the sensation of falling was the last thing Rose felt as the force inside her mind disappeared without a trace and she collapsed in a heap on the TARDIS grating.

The Doctor collapsed, too, his regeneration stopped. He hadn't changed, he could feel it, but it had been enough to heal him.

It wasn't until he saw Rose, lying on the floor beside him – unconscious – that he suddenly realised what must have happened.

Ignoring the grogginess he felt from the forced ending to his regeneration, he quickly made his way over to Rose and immediately began to check her vitals.

"Rose? Rose, what the hell have you done?" He asked quietly – almost to himself – as he checked her pulse and breathing. They both seemed to be perfectly okay – much to his surprise and relief – but that didn't stop him from worrying.

"Is she okay?" He heard someone ask and the Doctor suddenly realised that he wasn't alone. Looking up he saw the worried faces of both Jack and Jackie staring back at him.

"I don't know," he replied honestly. "Everything seems okay, but –

"But what?" Jackie asked, understandably worried about her daughter.

The Doctor didn't answer her, but merely asked a question of his own: "What happened? What did she do?"

This time, Jack spoke. "I dunno, all of a sudden she started walking to you – almost in some kind of trance."

"And you didn't try and stop her?" The Doctor asked, his voice rising in anger.

"Of course we did!" Jack replied. "You think I'd just let her do something like that without trying to stop her? We couldn't, she was too strong."

"Will she be okay?" Jackie asked.

The Doctor looked down at Rose and it was clear to both of them that he didn't know the answer to that.

"I don't know, Jackie, I honestly don't. Her breathing's normal, her pulse is normal, I can't find anything that would suggest otherwise. But she's absorbed the regeneration energy – all of it – even I don't know what that will do," he sighed and used the tips of his fingers to brush the hair off from Rose's face. His voice softened as he continued to look down at her. "The only thing we can do is wait for her to wake up."

"How long will that take?"

"I don't know. A couple of minutes, hours, days? Longer? I just don't know."

"Is there nothing you can do?" Jack wondered.

"Nothing, it's all up to Rose now," the Doctor said. "Why did she do it?" He asked, mainly to himself.

"You were changing," Jackie answered. "My only guess is that she was worried what might happen to you. You weren't well the last time and she was scared. There was an alien invasion on and you weren't there to help. Guess she didn't want the same thing to happen again."

The Doctor sighed. "She risked her life to protect me from going through a rough regeneration." It wasn't a question, but a statement of understanding. He shook his head and looked down at her. "Oh Rose, you didn't have to do that. I'd've been okay – I'm always okay." He kissed her forehead. "Come on," he said, this time addressing Jackie and Jack. "We'd better get her somewhere comfortable."

He made to pick her up, but the moment he was about to lift her up, the TARDIS suddenly powered down.

"What the-?" Jack began.

"Nonononono," the Doctor said, gently putting Rose back down and running around the console, pulling a lever here and pushing a button there. "No,"

"What is it? What's happened?" Jackie asked, slightly panicked.

"They've got us."

"Who? The Daleks?"

No one needed to answer that for Jackie to realise the question needn't have been asked.

"Well what do we do?"

The silence that followed was enough to answer that question.

…

There was nothing she could do. This was it. She had failed to find the Doctor and she had failed her son. Now all that was left to do was wait for the blast to come that would end it all.

It didn't come.

Instead there was the sound of an explosion as she saw both Daleks explode one immediately after the other.

Sarah-Jane got out of her car slowly and more than slightly shaky. From what she could see the two Daleks that had nearly ended her life had been shot with something in credibly powerful. It was only when she turned around that she saw who had just saved her life.

It took a moment for her to recognise the figure standing on the other side of her car, carrying a large – very powerful-looking – gun. However, when she did, she breathed a sigh of relief.

"Mickey?"

"Us Smiths got to stick together."

She went over to him and hugged him tightly. "It's good to see you again."

"You, too."

They didn't waste much time on their reunion before abandoning the car and making their way down one of the alleys.

They didn't have to walk far before they saw what both of them had been looking for. A little way ahead of them both Sarah-Jane and Mickey could see the TARDIS standing proudly in the street; the only problem was, it was surrounded by Daleks and a ring of some kind of energy surrounded the outer shell of the blue box. It didn't take a genius to realise that both the TARDIS and her occupants had been captured.

They watched in silence as the TARDIS was suddenly lifted off the ground and pulled up and out of the Earth's atmosphere. The Daleks were obviously taking it to their ship.

"If the Daleks have taken the Doctor to their spaceship, then that's where we need to be," Sarah-Jane pointed out.

"And how do we do that?" Mickey asked. "I have a dimension jump, but it needs time to recharge."

"A dimension jump?" Sarah-Jane asked, looking at Mickey in surprise.

"It's a long story and one which, if we survive this, I'll get the Doctor to explain."

Sarah-Jane didn't press the matter – it was hardly relevant right now – and decided that there was only one way they were going to get on board that spaceship.

"Then put down your gun – we're going to have to surrender."

"You what?"

"There's no other way and if you're carrying a gun, they will shoot you dead."

Mickey didn't argue, but reluctantly allowed himself to be parted from his gun before following Sarah-Jane, both hands up in surrender.

"Daleks! We surrender!" Sarah-Jane called, getting the aliens' attention. Mickey decided to stay quiet, all the while thinking that the woman in front of him had lost it.

"YOU WILL BE TAKEN FOR TESTING," one of the Daleks stated. There was no way that anything good was going to come out of that and both Mickey and Sarah-Jane just hoped that they would be able to make it out and find the Doctor in time.

…

The Doctor sat on the ground next to Rose, who was still out for the count. He couldn't deny that the longer she was unconscious for the more he began to worry. It still baffled him to think that Rose would even do such a thing, but considering Jack and Jackie had said that she seemed to be in some kind of trance, it made him wonder if she had really been in control.

He decided not to worry about that too much now, though; instead trying to focus on how he was going to stop the Daleks this time. he had felt when they had picked up the TARDIS and knew that they were on their way to wherever the Daleks had situated themselves this time. After three long years of not having to save the world, it had to be the bloody Daleks that got him back into his old life.

The TARDIS suddenly jolted as it came to a stop. The Doctor looked up from Rose and towards the doors of his ship.

"Where are we?" Jackie asked.

"Dalek ship – some kind of Crucible I would imagine."

"DOCTOR, YOU WILL STEP FORTH OR DIE," a Dalek bellowed from just outside.

The Doctor sighed, there was no other way.

"We have to go out," he said. "Cos if we don't, they'll get in."

"Hold on, you said before, you've extrapolator shielding," Jack reminded him.

"Yep, but that was last time. Back then they were hybrids and mad, but this time? This time, it looks as though we are fighting a fully-fledged Dalek empire. They'll be experts at fighting TARDISes," he sighed. "Right now, those wooden doors are just wood."

"So all of us together, then?" Jack asked. The Doctor just nodded.

"What about Rose?" Jackie asked, looking at the unconscious form of her daughter.

"We'll have to leave her here, there's nothing else we can do," the Doctor replied gravely.

"Thought you were about to take her somewhere more comfortable, though," Jack said.

"When the TARDIS's power went down, she would have locked all of the doors to the other rooms – a safety measure to stop unwanted lifeforms from reaching anywhere else in the ship while she can't defend herself. I can't open any other room until her power is back on."

"So we just leave her here?" Jackie asked, her voice rising.

"I'm sorry, Jackie, I really am, but I have no other choice. I don't want to leave her in here anymore than you do, but it's the only way. The only reassurance we have is that that lot out there don't know how many of us are here. If we're lucky, they'll see the three of us come out and think that's it; they won't even know Rose is in here. I'll lock the door, making sure that Rose can't get out if she wakes up, but I can't do any more than that," there was genuine regret in the Doctor's eyes and Jackie knew that it pained him to leave her here, especially since she was so vulnerable right now. But he was right, they didn't have any other choice. She just hoped that they were lucky and that the Daleks didn't detect her.

"Right then," Jackie said.

"Let's go," the Doctor stood up and began to make his way to the TARDIS doors. He stopped, however, for a second and grabbed his coat from its usual coral strut and made his way back over to Rose.

Carefully, he draped his coat over her like a blanket before bending down and pressing a firm kiss to her forehead. "I love you," he whispered, uttering the words he knew he hardly ever said before kissing her again. "Be safe."

He stood back up and made his way back over to where Jackie and Jack were waiting for him by the TARDIS doors.

"You okay?" Jack asked, concerned about his friend.

"Yeah," the Doctor breathed. He paused for a second more, taking one last look at Rose before pulling back the TARDIS doors and stepping out of his ship. In the back of his mind, all he could hope for was that this wouldn't be the last time.


	13. THIRTEEN

**_A/N: I am SO SO Sorry that this has taken so long to get to you and I am SO SO sorry that it's really short as well..._**

* * *

There were Daleks everywhere.

"DALEKS REIGN SUPREME. ALL HAIL THE DALEKS."

"O…kay…" the Doctor breathed, looking around as he stepped out of the TARDIS. Behind him, the door pulled up but didn't shut. He didn't notice. The only thing he saw was the situation they had been brought in to. He figured that this must be the biggest Dalek fleet he had seen since the end of The Time War.

The thought filled him with more dread than he had ever felt in his long life and the more he thought about how he might try and work his way out of this, the fewer ideas sprang to mind.

He continued to look around, barely noticing Jack and Jackie's stunned silences. His eyes crossed to a larger, red-and-gold-coloured Dalek standing on what looked like a pedestal. The Supreme Dalek.

"BEHOLD, DOCTOR. BEHOLD THE MIGHT OF THE TRUE DALEK RACE."

"Oh, my God," Jackie said, more to herself than anything. She had heard about Daleks and had even seen what they could do at Canary Wharf, but she had never been in the presence of one and certainly not an entire fleet. However, she knew that both the Doctor and her daughter had. She remembered when that was and the fact that it had ended with the Doctor changing his face to stop himself from dying didn't do much in the way of providing her hope that she would survive this.

The three of them stood together, unsure about what to do – about whether there was anything they _could_ do.

Because, right now, it looked as though they were at a loss.

There was a sudden click from the TARDIS behind them. The Doctor turned around immediately at the sound and ran towards the ship.

"I thought you locked it," Jack said as the Doctor tried – and failed – to open the door.

"I didn't, I meant to but I didn't." He continued to try and open the door, but it remained firmly shut. He turned back to the Daleks. "What have you done?"

"THIS IS NOT OF DALEK ORIGIN. THIS IS TIME LORD TREACHERY."

"Me?" the Doctor asked incredulously, walking further towards the Supreme Dalek. "The door just locked on its own."

"Maybe the TARDIS just locked the doors herself?" Jack ventured, hoping to calm the Time Lord he could see getting wound up. If the Daleks had realised that Rose was still in there, there was no telling what they might try and do.

The Doctor shook his head. "Her power's down, she can't do anything."

"NEVERTHELESS THE TARDIS IS A WEAPON AT IT WILL BE DESTROYED."

The sound of a hatch opened and the Doctor turned just in time to see the TARDIS fall down the hole that was left. He made for it, but there was nothing he could do to stop his ship from plummeting. His hearts pounded in his chest. Rose was still inside. Rose was still inside and there was nothing he could do to save her.

With pure fear in his eyes, the Doctor looked back at the Daleks, demanding them to explain where they were taking it. His eyes widened in fear and for a second he thought his legs might give way.

"But you've taken the defences down! It'll be torn apart!"

Upon hearing what the Doctor said, Jackie spoke. "But my daughter is still inside!" She turned to the Doctor. "You promised me she would be safe!"

The Doctor said nothing. Even if he had known what to say in that moment he would never have gotten the chance. The Supreme Dalek spoke instead; it's statement factual, it's tone uncaring:

"THE HUMAN AND THE TARDIS SHALL PERISH TOGETHER." It paused for a second and a screen appeared in front of the three remaining travellers. "OBSERVE."

The Doctor looked as a screen appeared above them. He could see the shape of the TARDIS fall into the core of the crucible.

Behind him, he could hear Jackie crying. He wanted nothing more than to tell her that it would be alright; that he would save Rose and get them all out of here in one peace. But there was nothing he could do; just watch as everything he held dear was torn apart and burnt right in front of him.

When the screen finally vanished, the Doctor knew that the TARDIS was gone. A small part of him still felt as though she was still there, in his mind. But he wasn't sure if it was just a phantom feeling. He didn't dwell on it. He couldn't. Losing the TARDIS was bad enough, but he knew he could live without her – but Rose?

He felt empty. Hopeless. His whole world having come crashing down around him.

Maybe the phantom feeling in his head was the only thing keeping him from going completely insane.

He wondered how long it would last.

"THE TARDIS HAS BEEN DESTROYED."

He barely heard the words, and he would be damned if he was going to lose it in front of the Daleks. He wasn't going to give in so easily, no matter how much he felt like lashing out in the moment.

"TELL ME DOCTOR. WHAT DO YOU FEEL? ANGER? SORROW? DISPAIR?"

"Yeah." His voice was quiet, and broke at the end. Still he stared at the space where the screen had once been. He could sense Jackie walking up to him, but he didn't turn to her. He couldn't face her, not now. How could he?

"THE SURELY WE HAVE ENHANCED YOU?"

The Dalek sounded almost smug, knowing that its words would cut deep. But the Doctor gave no reaction or even any indication that he had heard them.

Jack, on the other hand, had had enough. He turned to the Dalek, gun in hand, fury in his eyes. They had killed one of his best friends and he couldn't stand back and let them verbally torture another.

"Yeah? Well, feel this!" He fired a bullet, but it had no effect. In the back of his mind, he knew that would be the case, but the feeling of shooting helped release some of his built-up anger. However, it only lasted for a second as the Dalek – not even scratched from the bullet – shot back, hitting Jack with impeccable aim.

He screamed as he fell to the floor. Shrieking, Jackie made to go to him, but the Doctor held her back. This was their chance. Their only chance to find out what was going on. They had to stop whatever was coming. The Doctor knew he owed it to Rose to carry on the fight. He just had to stay strong.

"TAKE THEM TO THE VAULT." The Supreme Dalek bellowed. Another Dalek came up to them, pushing them towards the corridor to the far side of room. They complied without a fuss; there was no use in resisting.

But, the next words the bellowed from the Supreme Dalek made the Doctor want to do just that. He felt his blood run cold and his hearts stop for a painstaking second.

Just when things couldn't get any worse, _he_ was here.

But it couldn't be.

He'd watched him die.

How could he have survived?

"THEY ARE THE PLAYTHINGS OF DAVROS NOW."

…

Amongst the flames and the explosions, another golden glow came from inside the TARDIS and wrapped itself around the unconscious form laying silently on the grating. It lingered for a moment, covering the form until nothing but the golden glow was visible, before disappearing into nothingness – as though it had never been there.

The unconscious form of the floor groaned once before coming to.

Now it was time.

…

She could feel the sensation of falling before she could feel anything else.

Her eyes opened slowly, still unaware of what was happening around her.

Now open, her eyes scanned the console room as she pushed herself up from where she had lain. She could see the fire and the explosions, but none of it mattered. Not really. None of it was a cause of bother.

She knew she was in no danger.

Her hand touched a button on the console. There was a jolt, but she barely felt it.

She felt nothing other than Time coursing through her veins.

Nothing other than Time and an immense power she never thought she would hold again.

She could see everything now. Everything that ever was, that ever could be; everything that ever must and that ever must not.

She could remember everything from the last time she held this power. Everything made sense now. She knew what she had done and what she needed to do.

Because, as her eyes glowed bright gold within the orange-yellow flames of fire, she knew who she was.

She was Rose Tyler: Bad Wolf.

And she was going to save the Doctor.


End file.
